Claire M. Meyer, of Cygnet, has been named a 2023 Distinguished Senior at the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

“The Distinguished Senior Award is the most prestigious undergraduate award in CFAES and honors top graduating seniors on the Ohio State Columbus campus,” said Ann Christy, CFAES professor and associate dean for academic programs. “The 25 award recipients exemplify the CFAES mission in areas such as academics and scholarship, research and innovation, service and involvement, and influence and leadership.”

Meyer, an agricultural communication major in the Department of Agricultural Communication, Education, and Leadership, was nominated by college faculty and staff who felt that she personified the award’s attributes of academic, disciplinary, and professional excellence.

The Wood County resident identified her most valuable learning experience as the campaign design and management class in her major.

“In this class, we worked with real businesses around Columbus to develop a public relations campaign. My group worked with Goodwill Columbus to create a campaign that shared their message of sustainability with customers and helped turn them into advocates for Goodwill,” she said. “We worked directly with the company to create audience surveys, marketing plans, and social media content they can use in their future campaign. This class gave me real-life experience working directly with a client.”

Meyer also completed two summer internships, interning with AgCredit, ACA, in Fostoria, as an administrative intern and with the Wood County Fair Board as a communications and public relations intern.

Her greatest sense of accomplishment came from working with the fair board.

“I worked with board members to plan social media content throughout the summer, create advertisements for print and digital media to promote the event, and run the Facebook page throughout the week of the fair,” she said. “I ran daily Facebook Lives giving an overview of events happening on the fairgrounds and managed comments and messages. I was amazed to see and hear how much of an impact my work had on the individuals who frequent the fair each year. The communications team also received Best of Show with our trifold brochure at the Ohio Fair Manager Association Convention this past year.”

The agricultural communication faculty nominated Meyer for her academic excellence and leadership within CFAES and her student organizations. She was on the Dean’s List each semester and served as a student host to prospective CFAES students.

“Shortly after COVID-19 derailed many of our academic plans, I wanted to find a way to promote the college to future Buckeyes and share my experiences with others,” she said. “CFAES Hosts Academic Programs gave me this opportunity. As a host, I wanted to show prospective students the positive impact the university and college had on me even in the midst of a pandemic.”

Meyer also very active in the Sigma Alpha professional agricultural sorority, serving as first vice president.

“During this time, our chapter went through a process of reinventing our organization’s culture,” she said. “We identified areas that we knew needed to be changed and created a plan to implement those changes. It was my most rewarding experience during my undergraduate career.”

After graduation, Meyer hopes to work within the agriculture industry as a communications and marketing professional.

“Advocating for farmers has been a lifelong passion for me growing up on a family farm and being involved in 4-H and FFA,” she said. “I’m hoping to share that passion with others.”