The Northwest Turfgrass Association (NTA) will award a scholarship of $1,000 to Walla Walla, Wash.-based Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) in tribute to Bill Griffith, a 20-year turf management teacher at the college and outgoing president of the NTA, which he has a been a member of for 17 years.

The Bill Griffith Scholarship Fund will be presented annually to a WWCC student en route to earning an associate’s degree in turf management from the college to pursue a career in the turfgrass industry.

Griffith credits close ties to the NTA and other industry contacts with the success students have after they graduate from the WWCC program. It’s for that reason the NTA chose to recognize him.

“We felt today would be fitting to honor you and thank you for your decades of dedication to this association and what it has been trying to achieve,” the association wrote in a letter to Griffith. “But we also want to recognize what is at the heart of your motivation—helping students become interested and educated in the turfgrass industry.”