I’ve told you about my grandfather, T.B. Mayfield, in my last two blogs. But, now I want to tell you a little about my father and a recent gift he/we made to the University of Tennessee.

My dad, Tom Mayfield, was born on our family farm in McMinn County in 1919. He graduated from McMinn County High School and he went on to UT to study dairy science, just like my grandfather. When my grandfather passed away, my Dad came back home to help run the dairy. But he soon had to leave to go to war. During WWII, Dad was a Navy aviator and flight instructor. When he returned home from the war, he went right back to work with his brother (Scottie’s dad) C. Scott Mayfield, Sr. It was the two of them, along with their sisters and mother,  who mortgaged the family farm in order to build the first modern milk plant and ice cream plant in the southeast and from there, they came up with one good idea after the other!  

I don’t know if many people realize it or not, but Mayfield has been a pioneer in the dairy industry. Many things that are common today and used by dairies across the world, actually began at Mayfield by my Dad and uncle. Mayfield was the first to use the Aro-Vac, which today is only used by a handful of daries, we were the first to make and fill our own milk jugs in a continuous operation, we were also the first to add probiotics to our milk twenty years ago and we were even the first to start using packaging like the “Chugs” for milk and “Scrounds” for ice cream (those are the ice cream cartons with the lid). And, speaking of our ice cream, Time magazine actually named it the “World’s Best” back in 1981!

In hopes of keeping the spirit of innovation alive for years to come, we have funded money to the Institute of Agriculture to establish the Thomas B. Mayfield Endowed Scholarship. My brothers David and Bill, along with my sister Missy, my children and  other nieces and nephews decided to endow a scholarship in Dad’s name last fall. Dad was so pleased he matched our gift, making the endowment $ 200,000.  The scholarship will support students pursuing food science degrees at the University of Tennessee. My Dad always viewed his education at UT and the help he received from the university over the years as instrumental to his success. We are proud to be able to give back to his alma mater.

I’ll have more on my father in a future blog.