Hey y'all. Yes, I say y'all. No, I'm not from Texas, I'm Missourian through and through. As you can guess, I like boots and jeans. As a matter of fact, I hate sweatpants, except for the yoga pants I got in New York.
Now, my journey in agriculture started when I was really young helping my grandpa, dad, and sister on a small farm in rural Missouri. We have had bucket calves, chickens, guineas (strange looking poultry that love bugs), ducks, cows and a few bulls, and pigs over the years. Yup, we've had our own little petting zoo at times I guess.
Well, high school came and I went through one of those phases. I stopped listening to country music, I got a job in town, and I told myself I am leaving ag. I need to apologize to myself for lying.
The summer prior to my senior year, I changed my mind. Next thing I knew, I was accepted into CAFNR at the University of Missouri-Columbia as an Agricultural Journalism undergrad. I soon started up the country stations on my car stereo again and bought the first pair of boots that weren't hand-me-downs from my sister. That was just because the last pair like that had more holes than my lace curtains. Oh, and did I say they were Justin Gypsies? Yup, with purple stitching too. I love purple.
Now one love went away and then another came along. Tall. Very tall. Six foot six kind of tall. Dark hair. And a serious farmer. 3000 acres of row crops kind of serious. Well, he made me reconsider a lot of things. One of which was my major. It was the last semester of my high school career and I cannot tell you how many evenings I spent looking up every ag degree at Mizzou and what those would mean to me.
The one thing I remembered was that I love math and agriculture. I thought long and hard and considered everything, including the fact that I really was fascinated by my mother's work as an accountant. After hearing the presenters at career day talk about how useful an ag-business degree was, I was set. I officially changed my major.
Here I am now, finished with my first semester in college. I love Mizzou, but not the football, I left after half a game with Dad. I have made great friends. I know more now about supply and demand graphs than I thought you could or should know (Thanks, Applied Microeconomics and Dr. Dauve). And, most of all, I am so proud to represent the best industry in the world.
