{"id":67022,"date":"2006-05-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/couple-shells-out-scholarship-for-quahogging-uri-student\/"},"modified":"2006-05-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-08T00:00:00","slug":"couple-shells-out-scholarship-for-quahogging-uri-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2006\/05\/couple-shells-out-scholarship-for-quahogging-uri-student\/","title":{"rendered":"Couple shells out scholarship for quahogging URI student"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. — May 8, 2006 — University of Rhode Island student Jeffrey Grant often can be seen, bull rake in hand, traveling Narragansett Bay in his 21-foot skiff looking for the bivalve that has become Rhode Island\u2019s official shellfish, the quahog. The 20-year-old has been a commercial shell fisherman since he was 13.<\/p>\n


\n\tIt\u2019s a family legacy. \u201cMy father was a commercial fisherman for 32 years,\u201d says Grant who grew up on the water\u2019s edge in the Oakland Beach section of Warwick. \u201cMy father\u2019s retired now, but not before getting his son addicted to the water.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tOn this day, the URI student is sitting on a stonewall showing his improved design stainless steel bull rake to his benefactors, Wayne and Bernice Durfee of Narragansett. \u201cIn my day, they never had anything as good as this,\u201d Wayne says. <\/p>\n


\n\tAfter earning his doctorate at Rutgers, Wayne taught poultry science at URI for 26 years, becoming known far and wide as the Rhode Island Red expert. During the 1970s, however, with interest in poultry waning in the state, Wayne switched from chickens to teaching and researching shellfish. \u201cYou could see the future was in aquaculture,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n


\nWhen Wayne retired in 1989, he and Bernice established an endowed scholarship for bright students studying aquaculture. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re happy to support education,\u201d explains Bernice who met her future husband on the URI campus while she was earning a degree in botany and he was earning a degree in poultry science on the GI Bill. She graduated from the University in 1949, Wayne the following year. The couple married in 1951. Bernice was the assistant to the director of graduate studies until 1961. The couple has two children, URI 1984 alumna Bonita Durfee Lambert and URI 1988 alumnus William K. Durfee whose daughter Heather will enter the University this fall. \u201cURI is close to our hearts,\u201d Bernice says.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI like the idea of an endowment because it continues to grow,\u201d notes the professor emeritus. \u201cWe add a bit of money every year and I\u2019m surprised and pleased just how much it has grown over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhen he enrolled at URI, Grant expected to major in marine affairs. However when he volunteered for the Rhode Island Shellfishermen Association\u2019s seeding projects, which involved the care of a million seed quahogs, his interest turned to shellfish aquaculture studies.<\/p>\n


\n\t Grant is one of two students who received $500 from the endowed scholarship this year. \u201cI had a budget all worked out, but with tuition increases, I wasn\u2019t sure I could do it,\u201d the URI student tells the Durfees. \u201cBut then I got the notice of the scholarship, which covered the difference. I can\u2019t thank you enough.\u201d\t<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe future is in aquaculture,\u201d says Wayne. \u201cIt took 100 years to perfect poultry science and it may take another 100 years to accomplish similar progress in aquaculture.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Durfees encourage their recipient who will graduate in December to go to graduate school. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI plan to work for a few years, hopefully on a Rhode Island shellfish project and then do advanced studies,\u201d says Grant.

\nFor more URI news visit www.uri.edu\/news<\/p>\n


\nURI News Bureau photo by Nora Lewis.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. — May 8, 2006 — University of Rhode Island student Jeffrey Grant often can be seen, bull rake in hand, traveling Narragansett Bay in his 21-foot skiff looking for the bivalve that has become Rhode Island\u2019s official shellfish, the quahog. The 20-year-old has been a commercial shell fisherman since he was 13. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}