by Caleb Jones
JEFFERSON CITY – February always takes me back to the farm, more specifically those cold, blistering mornings.
If you grew up on a farm, you know the kind of cold I’m talking about. We raised hogs and cattle, which means I still wake up at night in a cold sweat thinking about pulling a calf in the snow. I also claim that cleaning out hog crates was my first internship in politics. But the truth is, growing up on the farm, and being in FFA, shaped just about everything I’ve done since.
I recently spoke at an FFA awards ceremony in my hometown of California. With National FFA Week this month, it felt like the right moment to reflect on what those years, and that jacket, really taught me. It’s been a few decades since I wore an FFA jacket (or could fit in it), but the lessons haven’t faded.
As I told them, when people look at a resume, they usually see the mountaintops – the peaks. We celebrate the wins, awards and titles. But life doesn’t grow on the mountaintops.
Life is a series of peaks and valleys. And while everyone sees the peaks, the grass grows in the valleys.
If someone introduced me by my resume, you’d hear about the peaks: Missouri FFA State Star Farmer, working for a congressman and a president, becoming a lawyer, serving as a Missouri state representative and now serving all of you as CEO at Missouri Electric Cooperatives.
What you don’t hear about are the valleys. You wouldn’t hear about finishing fourth in the FFA Creed or not being selected for the Co-Mo Electric Youth Tour. People don’t share pictures when you fall short of becoming a state FFA officer or lose an election for Mizzou student body president.
Oftentimes you want to forget these moments, but these are the experiences that teach you the most. That’s one of the many reasons FFA matters so much. FFA doesn’t just prepare students for success; it prepares them for setbacks. It teaches young people how to hold your head high when your pig earns a red ribbon and how to keep moving forward when the path ahead isn’t clear.
In my role with Missouri Electric Cooperatives, I meet great leaders every day. Your electric cooperative’s teams put people before profits, take responsibility and don’t clock out until the work is done.
That’s why the connection between FFA and electric cooperatives feels so natural to me. Just as FFA invests in young people, electric cooperatives invest in the next generation of leaders through programs like Youth Tour and CYCLE – providing opportunities to succeed (and sometimes fail).
Whether you were lucky enough to wear a corduroy FFA jacket or not, take a moment to look back on your own peaks and valleys. The success that lasts usually isn’t the kind everyone sees. More often, it happens quietly – down in the valley, where the green grass grows.
Caleb Jones is the CEO of Missouri Electric Cooperatives. He is a member of Boone Electric Cooperative. Email him at cjones@amec.coop.