The Midwest Section of the American Society of Plant Physiologists held their annual meeting at Purdue University, March 17 –18, 2000.There were over 80 attendees and 33 oral presentations by faculty, graduate students and undergraduates.Awards were presented to the two best graduate student presentations and to the two best undergraduate student presentations.The winners in the graduate category were Natalia Kolosova, Purdue University (Natalia Dudareva lab, “Floral scent production in snapdragon: regulation of methylbenzoate biosynthesis”) and Adam Miller, Iowa State University (Steve Rodermel lab, “Carbohydrate regulation of leaf development”).The undergraduate winners were Jonathan Vogel, Michigan State University (Pam Green lab, “Cloning and initial characterization of a poly(A) ribonuclease from Arabidopsis”) and Nicholas Ruppel, Miami University (John Kiss lab, “Regulation of root phototropism in Arabidopsis”).Dave Higgs (University of Wisconsin, Parkside), Joanne Dannenhoffer (Central Michigan) and Paul Morris (Bowling Green) served as judges of the student competitions.Vice President Tom Sharkey organized an evening symposium on “Protein Storage and Deposition”.The featured speakers were Rick Vierstra and Howard Grimes.

The membership elected a new Vice President, John Kiss (Miami University), to replace Tom Sharkey (University of Wisconsin, Madison), who assumed the Presidency for a two year term.Steve Rodermel (Iowa State) will remain Secretary/Treasurer for another two years.Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, will serve as the site of next year’s meeting, which will be held the week-end of March 23 and 24, 2001.Miami University was chosen as the site of the 2002 meeting.