Honors William F. Murphy Jr., a member of the Virgina Tech faculty for almost 25 years, who died in 2001. Murphy's work included many firsts for extension. He designed the first national auction and sale of feeder cattle via satellite and audio technologies and developed and produced the first graduate class for extension field personnel to be distributed on a national network. Murphy was also heavily involved in the first National Extension Technology Conference, held at Virginia Tech in 1986 (see article below), and served on the planning committee for the next several conferences. This conference is now the major educational event for technology enthusiasts in Cooperative Extension nationwide. Murphy won many national awards, including the Award of Excellence in Teleconferencing from the Agricultural Communicators in Education and the Most Distinguished Program award from the National University Teleconference Network for his program, "AIDS - A Burning Issue: Community Education and Action." He was a member of the program/operations council of Ag*Sat and was a major contributor to the early successes of this consortium, now called ADEC. Each year NETC remembers Bill Murphy by recognizing a distinguished speaker in his honor.