[1] Easter was born on October 23, 1947 in southwest Texas,[citation needed] where he was raised on a grain and livestock farm in La Pryor.
[3] The faculty member who left was recruited by then-executive at Purina, Ed McMillan, who would later become chair of the University of Illinois' Board of Trustees in 2015.
[6][7] Freshly out of graduate school, Easter began his career at the University of Illinois in the fall semester of 1976 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Animal Sciences.
[4] By 1987, Easter had been promoted to a full professor, and 7 years later, in 1995, he was named the head of the Department of Animal Sciences.
[2][8] In 2006, President George W. Bush appointed Easter to the Board for International Food and Agriculture Development (BIFAD), of which he became chair the following year.
The fallout of the scandal led the majority of the Board of Trustees to resign, along with the University's president and Chancellor Herman, who had recruited Easter.
[3] Commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1972, Easter traveled Washington, DC for weekend and summer assignments while working as a professor at the University.
[7] In January 2012, Easter's son Aaron died in a snowboarding accident in Colorado, just weeks before he was asked to take the role of university president.