The newest member of the Mississippi Poultry Hall of Fame is Peco Foods Special Projects Manager Steve McLaurin.
He is the 37th member of the Mississippi Poultry Hall of Fame since it was created in 1973. The portraits of previous inductees in the hall at the Mississippi State University Poultry Science Department include founders of companies, professors, and researchers, and those important in the growth and development of the industry into the state’s largest agricultural industry.
The announcement was made at the Mississippi Poultry Association’s Annual Convention on Sept. 16.
McLaurin has a broad range of experience in the poultry industry over his 45 years, including owning breeder and broiler farms, working for a renderer, and in live production for several poultry processors.
He has served on the Mississippi Poultry Association Board of Directors for more than two decades including as chairman of the MPA Board of Directors in 2009, 2015 and 2020.
McLaurin is Special Projects Manager for Peco Foods, headquartered in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Peco, with 3,000 employees in Mississippi, has processing plants in Bay Springs, Canton, and Sebastopol, and other facilities in Lake, Philadelphia and West Point.
Prior to his current position, McLaurin was live operations manager for Peco Foods in Sebastopol. In his career, he has worked for B.C. Rogers, Sanderson Farms and Griffin Industries.
He graduated from Mississippi State University in poultry science in 1979. In 2020, he was named a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Distinguished Alumni Fellow for the MSU Poultry Science Department.
Poultry and eggs are Mississippi’s largest agricultural industry with a $23 billion economic impact. The MPA, founded in 1937, is composed of poultry and egg processors, growers, and allied companies.
