OFI 617: She Witnessed Devastation, Wrote An Essay About What She Saw And Won A Heifer | FFA SAE Edition | Laney Mackaben | Belle Fourche High School FFA

SHOW NOTES

INTRODUCING LANEY MACKABEN! 

Laney Mackaben has quite a story about ranching cattle in South Dakota.  Her story will be told when she is older to grandchildren and youth in agriculture who want to hear about how hard it once was.  In 2013, when Laney was 9 years old, “Winter Storm Atlas” hit South Dakota and surrounding states.  But South Dakota took the brunt of the storm, and hundreds of thousands of head of cattle were killed.

Laney was already in the cattle business by that point, and she already knew that she loved cows.  She had received her first heifer while she was in kindergarten as a combined gift from her parents and grandparents.  So, when she drove around the state with her parents and witnessed the devastation that she was seeing she got a sick feeling.  Everywhere she looked she saw dead cattle that had been killed by the storm.

As part of the healing in the community there was an essay contest for school kids.  Laney and her sister both wrote essays about what the devastation made them feel.  They both won, and they were both awarded with an individual heifer, a symbol of something new starting and something good emerging from the disaster.  You can read an article about the contest and award at this link.

Today Laney has 14 head of cattle in her own herd.  She raises angus cattle crossed with a Hereford bull, and she has a beef entrepreneurship supervised agricultural experience.  She is just completing her sophomore year of hight school, and she is already serving as her chapter’s president.

Nobody can gauge what impact witnessing a disaster like that has on a 9 year old kid.  But in Laney’s case it appears to have motivated her and given us all a great agricultural advocate!

SUPERVISED AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE: Beef Entrepreneurship

HIGH SCHOOL: Belle Fourche High School; Belle Fourche, South Dakota

MASCOT: Broncos

FFA ADVISOR: Austin Bishop

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR LANEY MACKABEN:

Click on the picture below to be taken to the Belle Fourche High School Website:

Laney’s FFA Advisor’s Email Address: Austin.Bishop@k12.sd.us

Belle Fourche High School Telephone Number: 605-723-3355

FFA LINKS:

National FFA Organization

Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE’s)

Support FFA 

Donate to FFA – One way that FFA students are able to start small businesses is through an FFA grant of $1,000.  In 2014, 141 FFA students received these grants.  With your donations, more students can get this head start – pay it forward.

REASONS TO DONATE TO FFA:

• Only 2% of Americans grow and raise most of the food and livestock consumed by the other 98% as well as the rest of the world.  FFA is providing the needed education, training and resources to Americans that will carry that torch forward and insure that America continues to have inexpensive, quality food.
• Rural Communities will rely on entrepreneurship in the future for population growth and job creation.  The FFA is a major catalyst to that entrepreneurial growth.
• Farmers, ranchers and those working in agriculture give the rest of America incredible amounts of freedom because the search for food is as simple as going to the grocery store:

“The future of American agriculture depends on the involvement and investment in America’s youth, In order to prepare for the population of tomorrow, we need to encourage America’s youth today, and show that careers in agriculture are profitable, rewarding, and vital.”.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue

Where Off-Farm Income And Matt Brechwald Can Be Heard:

Member Of The National Association Of Farm Broadcasters