Opening global doors: AGEC alumnus provides study-abroad opportunities for Ferguson students
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Media Contact: Sophia Fahleson | Digital Communications Specialist | 405-744-7063 | sophia.fahleson@okstate.edu
While growing up on a small farm in Pocasset, Oklahoma, Bill Armstrong had no clear idea what was ahead of him. But after graduating from Oklahoma State University, new opportunities began to emerge.
Armstrong, agricultural economics graduate and donor to OSU, was heavily influenced by his two older stepbrothers to attend the university, he said.
“My two stepbrothers attended OSU at the time I was in high school,” Armstrong said. “One was a veterinarian, and my oldest stepbrother had been there for his master’s degree.”
In 1966, Armstrong went to college with the vision of becoming a chemical engineer, he said, but soon after the first semester, he was influenced to switch to agricultural economics by some friends who lived in his dorm.
“I kept talking to them about it, watching them and seeing what job opportunities there were from being an agricultural economist, and I thought I would enjoy that field even more,” Armstrong said. “So, I changed my major and loved every bit of it.”
During his sophomore year at OSU, Armstrong was introduced to his wife Donna Hugo Armstrong, and fell in love at a young age, he said.
“I got married when I was 19 to a girl my friend introduced me to about three months earlier,” Armstrong said. “She committed to working and helped put us through school.”
College did not look like how he imagined, Armstrong said, but he and his wife were devoted to each other.
“We had a partner in life for a long time to help us make decisions and keep us on the road career-wise,” Armstrong said.
After graduating, Armstrong began working for Ralston Purina in 1971 as part of their trainee program. He rotated through six to seven jobs within the company and became involved in the finance side of the operation, he said.
Armstrong worked his way up through Ralston Purina, but he decided to leave, he said. Then, he had an opportunity that would change his life, he added.
“I left the company for a little while,” Armstrong said. “Then, they called and asked me to come back. They asked if I was interested in the international division of the large animal department.”
In 1989, Armstrong began his journey abroad in the international division with his wife and two daughters.
The family moved to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They later relocated to the Philippines, where they lived from 1992 to 1997.
Before his time abroad working for Ralston Purina, Armstrong always had a strong connection to learning more about the agriculture and technology behind feeding people around the world, he said.
“I just love to travel, meet new people, and try to understand what is really happening,” Armstrong said. “Part of that comes from back in high school in the mid-1960s.
“The hunger around the world had similar media coverage we get with climate change today,” he said. “The population was growing at rapid rates across the world.
“People were starving,” Armstrong added, “because we didn’t have the technology or ability to get enough food into their countries.”
Through his work at Ralston Purina, Armstrong said he gained a deeper understanding of different countries’ hunger, exploring this issue and contributing to solutions he had been intrigued about since his youth.
“That has always been something I saw and thought would be a worthy thing,” Armstrong said. “Ralston Purina worked in feeding for more efficiency, helping people with the genetics, and so, it felt like we had something to do with it.”
In 2001, Cargill Inc. acquired the international business from Ralston Purina. Armstrong continued in the same work internationally for four years before retiring in 2004.
After Armstrong’s time abroad, he returned to the United States with great gratitude for the experience and wanted to share this with others, hoping to provide someone else with that opportunity, he said.
“The first times Bill ever flew abroad was when he took his first work trip, and he said this was kind of a life-changing experience for him,” said Sara Furr, senior director of regional development for the OSU Foundation. “He found it was important for him to share this with others.”
For the past 25 years, Armstrong has been a consistent donor to the university, dedicating the last five years to the Ferguson College of Agriculture’s study-abroad program, which he believes can benefit students, Furr said.
“Bill wants to have an impact on the number of OSU students who get to have an international experience,” Furr said. “He hopes they’ll find something that impacts them or inspires a desire to have a career abroad.”
Despite now living in Florida, Armstrong remains forever loyal and true to OSU, continuing to find ways to stay connected, Furr said.
“Bill has not lived in Oklahoma for almost 50 years now, and he has continued to support students by giving back to OSU, no matter where he has lived in the country and the world,” Furr said. “He has continued to have a passion to support students from OSU because of who he is.”
Although Armstrong has never met one of his study-abroad scholarship recipients, he received what he described as “the nicest thank you letter” from this year’s recipient, expressing her gratitude for the scholarship that made her study-abroad opportunity possible, he said.
“I don’t think I would have been able to go on the study-abroad course if it wasn’t for the scholarship,” said Josey Austin, OSU animal science junior.
Armstrong’s generosity and passion for making a difference opens the door to irreplaceable opportunities students will remember forever, Furr said.
“During the study-abroad course was my first flight and first time seeing the ocean,” Austin said. “All of those firsts would not have been possible if it weren’t for Bill.”
Story by Morgan Dennis | Cowboy Journal