Student Earns Potato Association Scholarship

North Dakota State University student Katlyn Balstad received the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association (NPPGA) Research and Education Foundation Scholarship for 2021. 

The NPPGA annually awards four scholarships to graduating high school students or college students who have a 3.0 grade point average or higher and whose parent or grandparent is an NPPGA member grower or an NPPGA Potato Associate member.

Balstad is a fourth-year student from Fosston, Minn., working on majors in management communication and crop and weed sciences with a minor in general agriculture. She is advised by Catherine Kingsley-Westerman, Department of Communication, and Rebekah Oliver, Department of Plant Sciences.

Balstad serves as the chief operating officer of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and as an assistant justice of the Student Court branch of Student Government. She also participates in the Order of Omega honor society, Blue Key honor society, Bison Ambassadors, Bison Guides, Crossroads Lutheran Campus Ministry, and works for the Office of Admission as a student tour and recruitment specialist.

Her internships have included recruitment and transitions intern in the NDSU Office of Admission and the Student Success Program during the summer of 2020 and NDSU Extension intern during the summer of 2021. 

She received the NDSU Student Court Justice of the Year award for 2020-21 and has received several scholarships including the Donald F. Schwartz Leadership Award for Communication Students, the NDSU Presidential Honor Award, the Valley News Live scholarship, and the Virginia M. Sorenson scholarship (Kappa Alpha Theta Foundation).

Balstad is still formulating her plans following graduation and says, “I have a wide variety of interests from commodity groups to marketing companies to agronomy.”

Author: Kamie Beeson
Editor: Karen Hertsgaard