Dixie Watts Dalton

Dixie Watts Dalton, Ph.D., grew up on a 150-acre family farm in Lunenburg County, Virginia. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees from Virginia Tech in Agricultural Economics and her Ph.D. from Duke University in Economics. She is an associate professor of practice in the Virginia Tech Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AAEC) and serves as coordinator of the agribusiness concentration of the Online Master of Agricultural and Life Sciences (OMALS) degree, a position she has held since August of 2021.  

From 2010 to 2021, she served as professor and program director of the agribusiness program at Southside Virginia Community College (SVCC), where she also served her last six years as the Dean of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Business.  

Prior to returning home to Lunenburg County in 2010 to develop and give leadership to SVCC’s new agribusiness program, Dixie spent seventeen years in her teaching and extension position in VT’s AAEC Department. During her time there, she served as undergraduate coordinator, academic advisor, and advisor of multiple clubs and organizations. She co-developed the department’s freshman seminar course and its formal internship program and taught as many as seven courses per year. She has been awarded numerous university, state, and national awards for her teaching, advising, and service, including the Virginia Farm Bureau Distinguished Service to Agriculture Award, the Virginia Agribusiness Council Special Recognition of an Individual Award, and the Virginia Cooperative Council Cooperative Education Leadership Award. In 2019, she was awarded the Distinguished Alumna in Academia Award by the VT AAEC Department. She has published numerous journal and popular press articles and has made hundreds of presentations around the state and nation, as well as in the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, and South Africa.  

Dixie is president of the Colonial Agricultural Education Foundation Board, helping to oversee an investment portfolio in excess of four million dollars, the earnings from which provide $200,000 for 86 annual scholarships. She serves in the following organizations and on their respective scholarship committees: State Fair of Virginia Youth Development Board, Virginia Cooperative Council Board of Directors, and Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Alumni Organization Board of Directors. 

Dixie and her husband, Johnny, own a cow-calf and hay operation in Kenbridge, Virginia, and own Valley Creek Hunting Supply.