Courtesy Photo/Image Howard Lamb at a legislative gathering, 1984

The Nebraska Bankers Association has honored Howard Lamb with an agri-business award for outstanding service to agriculture.

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The award has been presented each year since 1983 to individuals who made significant contributions to Nebraska and its agricultural industry.

Lamb has been a Custer County farmer and rancher for 54 years.

Today, his son David and grandson Rodney Lamb are involved in the operation, which consists of irrigates corn, dryland corn, and rangeland.

Although he still buys and feeds some cattle in the family feedlot, Lamb sold his beef cows to grandson Rodney. Grandson Jason Lamb also has a family ranching operation.

Prior to becoming a farmer and rancher, Lamb was an engineer with International Harvester Co. from 1949 to 1955, working in Omaha, Hinsdale, Ill. and Phoenix, Ariz.

Lamb was born in Bassett on Oct. 8, 1924. He attended elementary school in rural Rock County and graduated from Rock County High School in 1942. Two years later, he was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve at Notre Dame University. After service in the Pacific theater of operations, he was released to inactive duty in 1946. He returned to Nebraska and received a bachelor of science degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1949. He was a member of Sigma Tau, a national engineering honor society, while at UNL.

That year, Lamb married Jo Kellenbarger. They have two sons: Phillip, an attorney in Yakima, Wash., and David, a farmer-rancher, along with five grandchildren.

In 1976, Lamb was elected to the Nebraska Legislature. He was re-elected in 1980, 1984, and 1988. During his time as a state senator, Lamb served as chairman of both the executive board and the transportation committee, and as vice chairman of the natural resources committee.

Lamb was a member of President George H.W. Bush’s delegation to observe the first free elections in Romania, which occurred on May 20, 1990.

He has received numerous awards and honors including the "Senator of the Year" award from the Nebraska Stock Growers Association in 1978, and the Silver Eagle award from the Nebraska Farm Hall of Fame in 1995.

In 1997, Lamb was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the University of Nebraska Department of Biological Systems Engineering (formerly Agricultural Engineering).

Lamb served as vice president and director of the KRVN Rural Radio Association in Lexington; president and director of the Custer County Public Power District and president of the Anselmo-Merna Board of Education. In addition, Lamb was president of the Custer County Extension Board, and helped organize and was the first president of the Nebraska Association of County Extension Boards.

Lamb is a member of the Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement, Agriculture Builders of Nebraska, Nebraska Farm Bureau, National Cattlemen, the Republican Party, United Methodist Church and the American Legion Post 50.

For his leadership, numerous contributions to the agricultural industry, and his long and distinguished career, Howard Lamb has earned The Nebraska Bankers Association’s Agri-business Recognition Award.