Stein Appointed to Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative Board

BELLE GLADE, Fla., Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Fritz C. (Sonny) Stein, III was elected to the Board of Directors of Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative at its January 19, 2012 Annual Membership meeting filling the expired term of Walter A. (Drew) Duda who had served on the Board since 1999. Duda was thanked for his dedicated years of service by the membership.

Stein, 55, a native of Belle Glade went off to college and returned home and joined his late father Fritz C. Stein, Jr. in his sugarcane farming operation in 1978 as the fourth generation in the family farming business in the Glades.

The Stein family's history in the Glades goes back to the turn of the century. His great, great-grandfather first moved to the Glades in 1919 from Manatee County and took a job as the first lock tender on the Hillsboro Canal at Lake Okeechobee. He grew green beans on the shores of Lake Okeechobee and on Tory Island. The Stein family lost all but one descendent who were in the Glades during the 1928 hurricane where some 2,000 people were killed. The family has weathered devastating hurricanes, droughts and floods over the century and played a role in the development of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project and helped tame the farming region known as the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). The Stein family continues to farm the rich, deep lake bottom soils adjacent to Lake Okeechobee and plays an active role in the community.

Stein is a member of the Belle Glade Rotary Club, past president and Paul Harris Fellow; sits on the EAA Environmental Protection District Board of Supervisors; USDA Farm Service Agency County Committee; Belle Glade Housing Authority and Farm Credit Nominating Committee. He is a graduate of the inaugural class of Leadership Glades and served on the Board of Glades Day School and attends the Belle Glade Alliance Church.

In accepting his election to the Board Stein said, "It's an honor to follow in my father's footsteps and serve the membership of the Cooperative—especially representing the small growers. Dad always treated the Cooperative as his 'second' family, and I guess I'm destined to do the same thing."

Cooperative Chairman of the Board George H. Wedgworth said, "We're confident that Sonny will follow in his father's role and play an important part in the continued success of the Cooperative."

Stein and his wife Cheryl reside in Belle Glade and have two grown daughters and two grandchildren.

SOURCE Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida