Senator Christopher S. "Kit" Bond was the keynote speaker during the special celebration dedicating the opening of three crop genomics laboratories at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) on September 7, 2002.

In the picture (from left), Senator Bond,  Henry Nguyen, and Gary Stacey - both recently joined MU as Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council (MSMC) endowed chair professors of genomics and biotechnology.