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Thomas E. Berry Professorship
The Thomas E. Berry Professorship in Integrated Water Research and Extension was created by Malinda Berry Fischer and Dick Fischer, Thomas E. Berry’s daughter and son-in-law to honor the water conservation efforts and water interests of Mr. Berry. This endowed professorship in the Water Research and Extension Center will focus on sustaining Oklahoma’s agricultural water supply by helping producers, land owners, and the public make informed and beneficial decisions about water use and management.
Thomas E. Berry, a native of Ripley, Oklahoma, was known as “Wildcatter” Berry because he drilled for oil where the big companies would not. But his vision extended beyond the oil fields to the crop fields. He was a pioneer in using municipal wastewater treatment effluent to water crop fields, buying rights to treated wastewater from the Stillwater water treatment facility. Mr. Berry believed treated wastewater could be good for crops, and he was right. He had some of the thickest grass in Payne County and prolific vegetable gardens in an experiment called the “Honey Hole,” which consisted of collecting, transporting, and storing the effluent in 3 ponds before irrigating crops with it. Well before “conservation” was a trendy term, Thomas E. Berry was practicing just that—water conservation.
