Contact:          Joe Schuele                303-850-3360       jschuele@beef.org

Roxanne Johnson       303-850-3388      rjohnson@beef.org                

Kansas State Univ. Student Wins Beef Industry Scholarship

CME Group and National Cattlemen’s Foundation Honor Ten Students

Denver, CO (January 7, 2008) -- Ten outstanding students pursuing careers in the beef industry have each been awarded a $1,500 scholarship provided by the CME Group and the National Cattlemen’s Foundation.  The CME Group has sponsored this scholarship program for 18 years.

Each scholarship winner wrote a 750-word essay that identified key issues confronting the beef industry, and suggested possible ways of dealing with those issues.

The overall scholarship winner, Rebecca Tokach of Manhattan, Kan., was awarded an all-expense-paid trip to the 2008 Cattle Industry Annual Convention and Trade Show in Reno, where she will be recognized during the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Awards Program Lunch on Feb. 9. 

Tokach is a junior at Kansas State University in Manhattan.  As a student, the award will allow her to take advantage of every opportunity possible to gain a better and broader understanding of the cattle industry.

The additional nine scholarship recipients are:

“We are very proud to be partnering with the CME Group to offer young people the opportunity to advance their careers in the beef industry,” noted Bob Josserand, chairman of the National Cattlemen’s Foundation Board of Trustees.

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The Beef Industry Scholarship was introduced in 1989 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Live Cattle Futures Contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.  The CME Group and the National Cattlemen’s Foundation are committed to the future of the cattle industry and continue to recognize and support outstanding youth in the beef community. CME Group is a combined entity formed by the 2007 merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).  With the widest range of benchmark products available on any exchange and covering all major asset classes, CME Group offers futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange commodities, energy, and alternative investment products such as weather and real estate.

Celebrating its 35^th anniversary, the National Cattlemen's Foundation advances the future of the beef industry with passion and urgency for the benefit of consumers and cattlemen.