Adam Torres and Kyla Beck discuss Texas FFA
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Show Notes:
Listen to coverage from the 96th Texas FFA State Convention in Houston, Texas.In this episode, Adam Torres and.Kyla Beck, Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raiser Association, explore her experience with FFA and her role as an agribusiness student at Texas A&M University.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest for the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right. So today I am in Houston, Texas, and we are at the State Texas FFA Convention.
This is our third year covering the event. And today I have. Kayla Beck on the line and we’re going to have some fun when she’s over here working and we’re going to, and the sponsor of the event, correct. And we’re going to get into it. Yes. All right. So Kyla, just to get us going here, how did you first get introduced to the FFA?
So I grew up in Marion. I was a part of the Marion FFA chapter. And so out to Marion, but we had super rich tradition in history in our ag program. And so if you were. somewhat involved in ag, you were doing FFA and that was what you did. And so I grew up kind of idolizing all of the older kids, you know, that were graduating or just in high school competing and stuff.
And I idolized them and I just wanted to be like them or, and, you know, try to be at that level. And so I got into high school and I was showing cattle, showed cattle for many, many years, I guess it was like a decade, I guess. But. Showed cattle and then I did LDE’s and CDE’s, but yeah. Now, were you the first in your family or were you, are you legacy, you had others or like how?
I did have an older brother, but my, before my brother, my mom did show pigs in high school and she also went to Marion. So there’s a little bit of a legacy there, just a little, but since I showed cattle and not pigs, I showed pigs for a little bit, but we’re not gonna talk about that. What? No, I want to talk about that.
What happened with the pigs? I showed pigs for maybe like two years. Two or three years, and we’d never placed at a major show. Okay, okay, okay. That’s why we didn’t want to talk about it. We didn’t want to talk about it. We’re bringing up bad memories. Yeah, I loved showing them, but man, I did not get any good picks.
So, it just didn’t work out for us. Kind of worked out a little bit better. Yeah, okay. But So we did that for a decade, but yeah, my mom kind of set the stage for doing Marian FFA, but then my brother came into play and he did a few contests and he competed a little bit. We both showed obviously, but he did meet judging.
That was like his event that he liked to do. And as soon as I saw him do it, I was like, I want to do that. And I want to be better than him. Okay. So sibling rivalry, I win. Yeah. And we’re six years apart. So I have a little bit of time to figure out how to get good at it and stuff, so. I judged meats very competitively throughout my entire high school career.
I’m currently on the Texas A& M Meat Judging team right now. Wow. Amazing. Little shout out. But yeah, so I got really involved in meat judging and I loved it. And I can go on and talk about that forever and ever, so you might have to stop me. But, Well, I, but I do think that is a good transition. Speaking of the cattle, that’s what you’re here doing today.
Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so I am serving on behalf of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. And so we’re a member based organization that serves over 28, 000 members and we serve the entire state of Texas as well as some parts of Oklahoma. But we serve cattle raisers across the state and we provide law enforcement.
So. We have special rangers that are across all the districts of Texas that, you know, if you have cattle that are missing, someone steals your tack, your trailers, things like that. That’s what our special rangers are there to do. So, we do stuff like that. We also have an office in Austin at the Hill.
And so we have a political action committee that serves to create change and protect. Beef producers, beef cattle producers on the name. So that’s the company I’m here with. I get to talk to some amazing high school students that are really involved and passionate about beef. And so it’s really nice to be able to kind of talk to other people that are passionate about the same things as you.
Do you remember, so how is that, I feel like there’s this, there’s this lineage of individuals. So now they’ll see what you’re doing. They’ll be inspired. They’ll think about, Oh wait, you do meat judging. Oh, should I? Oh, now you’re at Texas A& M. Oh, should I be? There are like what’s going on, but talk about some of that and how like this community comes together, because one of the reasons I’m here, just so you know, is I want I saw and I see the amazing things going on and I want the rest of the world to see this yet aren’t necessarily all.
In agriculture or they may not have had a family member or otherwise that went through it like I’m from Michigan and I didn’t, I didn’t know what FFA was until Aaron Alejandro’s like, Adam, you just got to come, come down, see what’s going on. You’re gonna have it fun and like, and then I was hooked. I came the first year.
I’m in my third year in, I only got one bracelet, but I’m gonna get the other. I forgot my other two. No, I forgot. I felt I was so, so embarrassed, like a rookie. Come on. No. I’m a rookie over here. Act like you’ve been there. Thank you. So, so back to the question. Talk about that, like, history, that ecosystem, that, that community.
Yeah, so it’s really interesting because I honestly think the greatest stories that come out of FFA are the ones that you wouldn’t ex the people that wouldn’t expect to be there. Yeah. And I’ve talked to so many people of all, all over the place because I’ve actually recruited on behalf of my college at national convention.
Yeah. So I’ve really been able to talk to a lot of people that. Different backgrounds, different stories, and the best ones are the ones that are like If you would’ve asked me a year ago, where I’d be right now, I did not think it would be at Texas FFA, but I, I love it. You and me both, if you asked me three years ago, I’d be like, wait a minute, I’m going to be in Houston, I’m going to be in Waco, I went to one in Dallas, I’m going to be like, where am I going to, I don’t even know where that’s at.
Exactly, exactly. No, and I, I’ve always thought that was the greatest thing because legacies are great. You know, and following in your parents footsteps are great, but I really love just how rich it is to have people that are just passionate about certain things that might be different from everybody else, and they are individualistic in how they’re striving for their goals, and that’s always been my favorite thing, just to talk to people that You wouldn’t think that they would be there, or they didn’t think they would be here.
So, but no, the, the lineage of, you know, I’ve come to Texas FFA convention for six years now, and I’m in college. So, I, my freshman year I had to come here because I, we had won the state meets contest. So, I had to come and represent my team. But, and then last year I recruited on behalf of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A& M.
And that was an experience in itself, being able to talk to a lot of people, and we’re telling them, you know, my story about Texas A& M, and telling people like, you know, this is a really good place. If you like agriculture, come over to Texas A& M. Talk about the school. Talk about the school. How’s that going, the program, everything else?
How are you? I genuinely, I love that place. I love College Station. Yeah. I love Texas a and m. I think I could sit here and talk to a brick wall about Texas a and m, but they provide so many opportunities for students. Mm. And the ability to get involved in the college. Mm-Hmm. is outta this world. You could be in, you could be intrigued to small, small, little things.
Yeah. And your name could be Mike and there’s an organization for Mike’s. Just Mike’s. It’s like, stop. Yeah. And that’s on main campus. So like, it’s not just College of Ag. That’s great. It’s everywhere. But the College of Ag itself is awesome. I personally, I serve on the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Student Council.
So we are, we serve as a liaison between the dean, the faculty, and the students. So we do try really, really hard to make Every single student feels seen and that they’re represented by the dean and the faculty. So, and what does that, what does that student council represent? Like, talk a little bit about that, yeah.
So, we try to maintain professionalism and promote professionalism within the College of Ag. And so, like I said earlier, we serve as that liaison. So, We actually control and dictate where the finances go for the college. So we have multiple committees and one of them is the finance committee. And so we host the career fair every single year in the fall and the spring.
And that’s our largest fundraiser. We make lots of money off of that, but it’s in the end, it’s for our students. Of course. Of course. And we get them in touch to all of these organizations that want to hire them or eventually make connection, could be their career path, you know, things like that. And I think we genuinely just serve as a support system for the students.
And so, yeah, I, I genuinely don’t think there’s a better organization than that one. But, you know, I’m all right with that. I want you to, I like to kind of work in a question for the people that aren’t here, like specifically corporate sponsors, other businesses, other companies. You’ve been coming to these for six years.
Obviously, this is a huge place. I mean, for everybody that’s watching or listening to this, I mean, there’s like, you know, 15, people here. It’s a huge convention hall. Why should people that aren’t here, corporate sponsors, why should they get involved with FFA or Texas FFA? Yeah, I genuinely think if you want to put any, any stake in the future generations, hardworking kids, I don’t think that there’s a better place for you to go.
If you want to get in touch with people that you know will be hardworking in your company, I think this is the place to be. Yeah. And I’ve seen it happen for multiple different people. Mm hmm. Many people from here, they’ll meet, you know, one of the vendors that are sitting here, one of the corporate vendors, like Capital Farm Credit.
So many people from Texas FFA work for Capital Farm Credit now. Yeah. Like, Emma Mosley’s sitting over there. Yeah. She was a state officer. Yeah. In Texas FFA, and now she’s working for Capital Farm Credit. I think that if you want hardworking employees in the future generations, I think you need to be here.
This is the place to be. That’s amazing. Well, Kyla, thank you for coming on this show today. This has been so much fun and for the audience at home. Hope you got a lot out of this and you heard what Kyla said if you are a corporate sponsor otherwise, and you’re not involved yet. That’s why I come back year after year.
I come back to this because these are some of the hardest working members. Kids, they’re, you know, different ages, hardest working. We’ve had internships. We brought people in. So we’re not just saying it in coverage. We’ve done it and I see it. And I’m telling you, I’ve been, I’ve been very satisfied and I know the other corporate sponsors are as well.
So if this is your first time listening to missing mission matters and you have not hit that subscribe button, hit the subscribe button, this is a daily show. Each and every day, we’re bringing you new content and new thought leaders and hopefully new inspiration. That’s going to help you along in your journey as well.
Well, this has been so much fun.