The $6-Million Man: McElrath Makes Major Commitment to College of Agriculture

By: Jamie Creamer

For Wayne McElrath, there's no question of which came first.

It was the egg.

The commercial egg business, to be exact. And then followed broilers, and from there, a highly successful career in the poultry industry that culminated in a sale which made McElrath a multi-millionaire.

And now, he's giving $6 million of his earnings to his alma mater: the Auburn University College of Agriculture.

McElrath and his late wife, Nadine, established the R. Wayne and Nadine McElrath Endowment for Scholarships in the College of Agriculture in 1998 with an initial gift of $100,000. His newly announced planned gift of $6 million represents the largest single contribution ever to AU's College of Agriculture.

When fully funded, the endowment will provide full-tuition scholarships for dozens of students annually. And that's what it's all about, McElrath says.

"I believe that you multiply yourself through people, and that's what I am attempting to do with this endowment," he says. "It is my hope that each student who gets one of these scholarships will remember what it means to him or her and someday give in the same way, to help future students."

The unpretentious self-made millionaire and long-time poultry industry leader grew up with his three siblings on a row-crop farm in Cherokee County's Cedar Bluff community. He was, he says, "a kid of the Depression," and the hard times made their mark on him.

"The Depression taught me how to work, and it taught me how to live within my means," the 76-year-old McElrath says. "That's the reason I have what I have today: I've borrowed money to invest, but I've never borrowed just to keep up with the Joneses."

Although the family was far from wealthy, McElrath says he can't recall there ever having been a question as to whether he would go to college, and when the time came, he enrolled in Auburn University. The year was 1948, on the heels of World War II, and it was "me competing against all those guys back from the war and going to school on the GI Bill," he recalls.

As for McElrath, he worked his way through Auburn, cutting and hauling timber all summer every summer to pay for the next school year. He graduated in 1952, with a degree in agriculture education.

"I chose ag education because I knew I could do anything with that that I could do with an ag business degree, but I wanted to know I could always fall back on teaching if I ever had to," McElrath says.

That was never necessary. After a two-year tour of duty as a U.S. Army tank platoon commander in the Korean War, McElrath landed a job as a route poultry feed salesman in Georgia with St. Louis, Mo.-based Ralston Purina, then the largest animal feed company in the world.

"When I started, I was making less than I'd been making in the Army," he recalls.

Apparently, the company quickly realized his potential as a sharp businessman, though, and in 1960, having gradually branched out into the poultry and egg business, it tapped McElrath to be live production manager for its commercial egg and hatchery division in Albertville.

From there, McElrath moved through the ranks with Ralston Purina's egg and broiler operations, eventually winding up at headquarters in St. Louis before leaving in 1968 to partner with his brother Herman and Ralston Purina poultry division vice president Don Corbett in launching McElrath Farms, a commercial egg business they based back in Albertville.

That operation became remarkably successful remarkably fast.

"When we got to Albertville, I didn't have a single employee or a single chicken," McElrath says. Within four years, the company had more than 600 employees and was processing 450,000 dozen eggs-not to mention 900,000 broilers-a week.

Although part of his motive for starting McElrath Farms was his love for the egg business, the key impetus was that he had seen "the handwriting on the wall" at Ralston Purina.

"The poultry business is very cyclical, and they (Ralston Purina) didn't like doing business that way," he says. "I could tell they were wanting out."

Turned out, he was right. In 1972, when Ralston Purina put its poultry and egg division on the block, the McElrath brothers, Corbett and a small group of general managers within the division pooled their resources and bought a portion of the operations, including the Albertville facility where McElrath's rise in the business had begun 12 years earlier.

At its peak, their company, Hartford, Conn.-based Corbett Enterprises, boasted $400 million in sales revenues annually.

In 1986, Corbett Enterprises sold to Hudson Foods of Arkansas.

"That sale is the reason that I'm able to give to Auburn," McElrath says. "Auburn means a lot to me, because I realize I never would have gotten that first job with Ralston Purina had I not had that ag degree. I wanted to give something back."

Through his 30 years in the business, McElrath was extremely active in the Alabama Poultry & Egg Association, serving as chairman in 1979. He was inducted into that organization's Poultry Hall of Fame in 1987 and, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to agriculture in the state of Alabama, into the AU Agricultural Alumni Association's Hall of Honor in 1989.

In the years immediately following his retirement from the egg and poultry business, McElrath operated a cattle farm on Lookout Mountain but has since turned that operation over to nephew Richard McElrath, himself a 1996 AU poultry science alum.

Today, McElrath, who has two grown children, lives in a modest two-story in a modest neighborhood of Albertville with his wife of four years, Faye. He loves to fish-especially crappie fishing at nearby Weiss Lake- and he loves yard work.

"He used to hire somebody to mow the grass, but now, he does it all himself," says Mrs. McElrath, who has worked alongside him to transform their backyard from a nondescript sod-covered lot to a vibrant outdoor living area.

McElrath's $6-million commitment to agriculture at Auburn will have widespread impact, CoAg Dean Richard Guthrie says.

"For students, full-tuition scholarships will be a tremendous financial boon to them and their families and could mean the difference as to whether some students have the resources to attend college at all," Guthrie says. "For the college, the availability of more scholarships will increase our competitiveness when it comes to attracting top students."

The College of Agriculture currently offers 135 scholarships with total aid amounting to more than $514,000 annually. At current tuition levels, the full $6-million McElrath endowment would fund almost 50 additional full-tuition scholarships per year.

The McElrath donation represents almost 22 percent of the college's $27.7-million capital fundraising campaign goal that kicked off in February as part of Auburn University's largest fundraising campaign ever. The "It Begins at Auburn" campaign is a $500-million comprehensive campaign that will raise funds for all colleges and schools on campus as well as the library, athletics, Auburn University Montgomery and the museum.

In addition to his substantial support for Auburn, McElrath is a staunch benefactor of Big Oak Ranch, a Christian home for abused and unwanted children. Founded by former Alabama Crimson Tide standout John Croyle in 1974, Big Oak operates a boys' ranch in Gadsden, a girls' ranch in Springville and a Christian school in Rainbow City. When Corbett Enterprises sold, McElrath donated a group home to the boys' ranch. He also is leaving a portion of his estate to the ranch because, as is true with Auburn, it's a cause that's close to his heart.

"I heard John Croyle speak years ago, and he had a great dream," McElrath says. "It struck a chord with me. Big Oak Ranch does great things."

And so, in his unassuming way, does Wayne McElrath.

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