Student Accomplishments

Serving the community

Andrea Loyd maintained her 4.0 GPA by “studying, studying and studying some more” while also participating in community service at the Cedar Creek Therapeutic Riding Center. She pieced together scholarships from seven public and private funds to finance her MU education.

Initially it was 4-H programs that brought Andrea Loyd from New Melle, Mo. to Mizzou. She won cattle and sheep events at the local level and rose to regional and statewide competitions held here in Columbia. Her parents own a small cow/calf operation; neither had been to college, but they both wanted Andrea and her sister, Tera, to have the advantages they missed.

“It was really, really hard to come to Mizzou,” Loyd says. She received a Curator's Scholarship, Bright Flight and small scholarships from F. B. Miller, the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association, Missouri State Fair, Kansas and Texas Livestock Producers, and the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. The combined sources made Mizzou possible.

Loyd credits her mentor and adviser, James Spain, with her success at Mizzou. They met through a FFA program when she was a junior in high school. “He lit a fire in me and made me see that I could not only come here, but that I could excel,” she recalls.

Loyd was one of an elite group of undergraduate researchers, maintained a 4.0 GPA, participated in many student associations and found time to do volunteer work at the local food bank, her church and the Ronald McDonald House. The Journal of Animal Science recognized her as an outstanding student, and her peers elected her Barnwarming Queen during her sophomore year.

She graduated in 2006 and plans to eventually return to Mizzou for an advanced degree in ruminant nutrition. She hopes she will find the same kind of financial support that helped her through the first four years.