Millennium Magazine_4th Ed

347 Millennium - A Marquis Who’s Who Magazine State University and received a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry and agriculture in 1960. He also completed postgraduate coursework at the University of Kansas in 1961. After college, Mr. Burmeister joined the Kansas (United States) Army National Guard, in which he was an active reservist from 1963 to 1969. Mr. Burmeister called his involvement in the Peace Corps in India a highlight of his career, as well as what came after that: teaching middle and junior high school Sunday school classes at church. He said that the Sunday classes helped him learn and mature. In 1970, the United States Atomic Energy Commission proposed depositing most of the nation’s radioactive nuclear waste in the state, and that made himconcerned about the hazards surrounding that proposal. Therefore, in 1971, Mr. Burmeister took a course titled “Can Man Survive?” at Fort Hays State University that he said was a pivotal moment of his career. Locally, Mr. Burmeister is an advocate for farmers and sustainable agriculture. He is a member of the Kansas Farmers Union, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, and the Kansas Citizens Forum Committee for Humanities. Alongside Mr. Burmeister’s various local positions in agriculture representation, he is a member of multiple organizations, including the National Wildlife Federation, National Arbor Day Foundation, WorldWildlife Fund and the Cousteau Society, among others. For Mr. Burmeister’s dedication to farm preservation, he was a recipient of the Bankers Award from the Banks of Barton County, Kansas, and the U.S. Soil Conservation Service in 1990. He has also contributed a number of articles to environmental and agricultural journals. Mr. Burmeister initially loved the farm life and work in part because of the independence that comes with it, but he finds it important for farmers to connect and work together to protect their land. G rowing up on a farm, Mr. Burmeister saw the farm as his whole world. He continued the family profession and contributed to key environmental and societal developments in agriculture. Mr. Burmeister is a Kansas native and was a farmer in Claflin, Kansas, from 1952 to 1961 and from 1964 to 2015. He attended Fort Hays PAUL FREDERICK BURMEISTER FARMER Claflin, KS SOCIAL SERVICES AND NONPROFIT