Early September brought us a moment to celebrate.  The Heeke ADDL at SIPAC, near Jasper, was started 40 years ago in 1969!

The original mission of the Heeke Lab was to support the poultry industry in southern Indiana.  A 1977 lab addition allowed an expansion of services. 

In 1999, the lab was renamed for the late Dennis H. Heeke, a state legislator who helped establish the lab and promoted southern Indiana's poultry industry.

  As early as 1974, then Director Merrill Ranck reported the first occurrence of Dactylaria infection in chickens.  Then, in 1994, working with the turkey industry, ADDL diagnosticians Dr. Tom Bryan and Tom Hooper helped recognize turkey coronavirus and then developed diagnostic tests that assisted in the eradication of the disease from Indiana.  In May 2005, Heeke ADDL pathologist Duane Murphy recognized and reported the occurrence of a foreign animal Disease, Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease, in Indiana.  As a result, the disease was controlled and eradicated from the state.