§ 979.22 - Establishment and membership.

(a) There is hereby established a South Texas Melon Committee, consisting of ten (10) members, to administer the terms and provisions of this part. Six members shall be growers, three members shall be handlers, and one shall be a public member. Each shall have an alternate who shall have the same qualifications as the member.

(b) Each member, other than the public member, shall be an individual who is, prior to his selection and during his term of office (1) a resident of the production area, and (2) a grower or handler, or an officer or employee of a grower or handler, or of growers' cooperative marketing organization.

(c) Five members shall be growers from District No. 1 and one member shall be a grower from District No. 2. No person, if he handles melons, shall be eligible for selection as a grower member on the committee unless all of the melons handled by him during the fiscal period immediately preceding his proposed selection to the committee were his own production or unless such person is an officer or employee of a growers' cooperative marketing association. Three members shall be handlers from District No. 1.

(d) The public member and alternate shall be a resident of the production area and be neither a grower nor a handler and shall have no direct financial interest in the commercial production, financing, buying, packing or marketing of melons, except as a consumer, nor shall such person be a director, officer or employee of any firm so engaged.