CYPRESS, Calif. – July 30, 2012 – Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A., has named the recipients of its fourth annual Yamaha-ACT Scholarship Program.  The chapter award has been granted to the Illini Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT) Chapter at University of Illinois, while Danielle Smith of University of Arkansas and Bailey Toates of Oklahoma State University have both earned individual scholarships.  As recipients of the individual scholarships, the students have the opportunity to serve as interns for Yamaha during the 2012 Ag Media Summit (AMS) next month in Albuquerque, NM.

Yamaha’s scholarship program was launched in 2009 to provide financial assistance to members of the ACT, a national collegiate student association with the mission of fostering professional development and skills.

The Yamaha-ACT Scholarship Program is broken out into two individual student scholarships and one chapter scholarship.  All three awards are aimed at helping students attend the annual AMS.  As the largest gathering of crop and livestock media professionals in the country, the AMS is the primary career development networking opportunity for these ACT students each year.  This industry event is hosted by the American Agricultural Editors’ Association (AAEA), the Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and the American Business Media Agri-Council.

As part of the application process, students were asked to incorporate important ATV and Side-by-Side (SxS) vehicle safety messages within an appropriate real-life farming/agricultural scenario into practical communications pieces such as a feature story, brochure or press release.

“The high quality of the applications that we receive each year speaks to the dedication that these students and chapters have for careers in agricultural communication,” said Steve Nessl, Yamaha’s ATV and SxS group marketing manager.  “Yamaha is proud to support these students while promoting the safe, responsible and productive use of farm equipment.”

Previous Yamaha-ACT Scholarship winners come from Canada’s University of Guelph, Oklahoma State University, Purdue University, Texas Tech University and the University of Florida.