Damona Doye ('86 PhD ag economics) has been named associate vice president of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, making her the first female to head the statewide agency.
Doye is the Cooperative Extension's longtime farm management specialist and holder of the Rainbolt Chair in Agricultural Finance with Oklahoma State University's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.
A faculty member at OSU since 1986, Doye is regarded throughout the nation as a leader in the agricultural economics profession. She is a past president of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association and chaired the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics.
She was the first female OSU Cooperative Extension agricultural economics state specialist, as well as the first female member of both the Southern Extension Farm Management Committee and the North Central Farm Management Extension Committee.
Her parents are Georgia and Damon Doye of Lawton. Her brother, Thad, is interim executive director of Oklahoma Farm Bureau.
Growing up, she was a member of 4-H and Lawton FFA, as well as a State Farmer. She is a 1976 graduate of MacArthur High School. She earned her bachelor's degree in agricultural economics from OSU in 1980, her master's degree in ag economics from OSU in 1981 and her Ph.D. in ag economics from Iowa State University in 1986.
She has been an OSU extension farm management specialist since 1986. As a faculty member, she has occupied an office on the fifth floor of Ag Hall, but she will be moving downstairs to assume her new duties as associate vice president, Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service (OCES). This is one of three components within the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, the other two being the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, and the research component, which is the Oklahoma Ag Experiment Station. She will be in charge of the outreach component.
"I'm looking forward to it. For me, having been involved in Extension from youth as a 4-Her to having a career in it and having gone to two land grant institutions, it's an opportunity for me to also pay it forward," she said.
OCES employs more than 500 faculty, professional and support staff. Employees can be found on the OSU campus and in more than 80 locations throughout Oklahoma.
The OSU/A&M Board of Regents conducted a national search to fill the position, and Doye was one of four selected to be interviewed. She said she had been interested in the post, as her department head, Jim Trapp, had served as head of OCES for the past 11 years.
Mitch Meador
The Lawton Constitution
Jan. 28, 2018