Rural Missouri - January 2021 - 5

Missouri
RURAL

Volume 74 | JANUARY 2021 | Number 1
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RM | PERSPECTIVES

Lunch with an old friend
by Caleb Jones
cjones@amec.coop

ne thing
I really like
about
rural Missouri:
Once you get to a
certain age, just
about anywhere
you go outside the
city limits you're
likely to run into
an old friend. It
might be in a coffee shop on Main
Street or at the
local MFA buying
It's always a good day when an old friend stops by the office. This time it
some cattle feed.
was new Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins.
You rub elbows
someone that not only knows the
with someone and realize you maybe
issues facing rural Missouri but is
sold them a horse or shared a duck
someone you can trust.
blind with them on opening day.
One of the first stops Garrett made
That's how I felt when I heard Garafter getting the nod as president was
rett Hawkins was elected Missouri
to grab lunch at our rural electric
Farm Bureau president. Garrett and I
cooperative office here in Jefferson
go back a long way, to the time when
City. It makes perfect sense because
the two of us fought it out in corduroy
those rural folks on our co-op lines
jackets in countless FFA speech conlikely are also members of the Farm
tests throughout the state.
Bureau (myself included).
If you ask him, he got the better of
While we certainly spent some time
me most of the time. I seem to rememtelling old war stories, it didn't take
ber things differently.
long before we started talking about
Garrett and I always seemed to
rural Missouri and what we can do
run into each other throughout life.
to help each other. After all, many if
Whether it was in Washington, D.C.
not all, of the issues facing Missouand Jefferson City working on ag
ri's electric cooperatives are the same
issues or taking part in the State Fair,
issues Farm Bureau is working on.
we quickly figured out it made sense
Garrett and I agree that if rural
for us to be friends.
areas are going to succeed, it will take
Garrett managed to move his family
organizations like the ones we repreback to the farm in Appleton City, but
sent working together to make that
like all good friends, we kept in touch.
happen.
He and his wife, Jennifer, and their
I always say that I'm just a farm
children, Adelyn, Colton and Tate, are
kid who happens to have one of the
the third generation in the Hawkins
best jobs in the world. I can't tell you
family to own and operate the farm
how happy it makes me when another
where they live.
farm kid gets the opportunity to repre If you ask me, I can't think of a betsent rural Missouri as well.
ter pick to head an organization like
the Missouri Farm Bureau. Between
Caleb is the executive vice preshis agriculture degree from Missouri
ident and CEO of the Association of
State University and his time working
Missouri Electric Cooperatives and a
at Farm Bureau and the Department
member of Boone Electric Cooperative.
of Agriculture, Garrett has become
JANUARY 2021 | RURALMISSOURI.COOP

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Rural Missouri - January 2021

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