Last night at the Barn of Willow Brook Acres just north of Prescott, the Organization for Youth Education in Agriculture (OYEA) held its 2023 Banquet and fundraiser, its second overall. The guest speaker was former Arkansas State Representative and State Senator Bruce Maloch who conveyed the message that learning farming skills could lead to a brilliant future for young people.
OYEA is a nonprofit established in 2018, according to “The OYEA Story,” an article in the program for the event, “to support an educational environment outside of a conventional classroom in various aspects of agriculture for Prescott High School students. Right now, a 10-acre school farm, which boasts “three barns, fencing, fresh water in each pasture, and a corral with a squeeze shoot” is in use with a goal to make it self-sufficient in seven years.
Billed as a night of celebration, the evening began with remarks by co-founder Fred Harris, a local pharmacist. He noted the improvement in competition performance by OYEA student members.
Darren Neal introduced Maloch a Magnolia native, who was Arkansas State Senator from 2013-2017 and State Representative from 2005-2011, as a friend of agriculture. Maloch is a vice chairman and general counsel at Farmers Bank and Trust, where he has worked for 35 years.
Maloch began by referring to his and his family’s participation in youth farming programs: “I was involved in and I showed livestock in the 70s. My kids showed livestock in the 90s and early 2000s. And now, this past year at the state fair, I had five granddaughters and they were showing pigs. So I know what this is about. I love these programs.”
He also mentioned his current involvement using his skill as an auctioneer. “I auctioned five Junior livestock sales this past fall,” he said. “And with every group, before I started, I told them, ‘We don't use kids to help raise our livestock. We use livestock, to help raise our kids.’ And that's what you all are doing.”
As an officer of the national Future Farmers of America, Maloch said he was able to travel to 46 states in 320 days and six countries. These included a trip inside the Soviet Union in 1977 to see farm collectives. He also found himself sitting behind President Gerald Ford as he made a speech from the 1974 national FFA convention in Kansas City and marching in Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Inaugural Parade with other young FFA members.
Carter was the first and so far only FFA member to be elected president. “I've been through the Oval Office, I've met Secretaries of Agriculture and congressmen and senators,” he said, adding that his daughter was also an FFA national officer and became current Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s special assistant. When Maloch attended the FFA Convention in Indianapolis recently, Vilsack was there as speaker, and so was Maloch’s daughter, Victoria Maloch, acting as member of the Secretary’s staff.
An encounter with legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey is another among Maloch’s adventures in the FFA, he explained. Having picked up Harvey and his wife at the Kansas City Airport, Maloch escorted him to a radio station where he watched Harvey deliver his daily new show. Then, at Municipal Auditorium, he saw Harvey make the 1978 FFA convention speech from which Harvey’s monologue “So God made a Farmer” was taken, which was used in a 2013 Dodge Trucks commercial.
Despite all this, Maloch said his most important life-lessons came from his early years in the FFA. He listed his experiences during this period. “My first project, breaking that steer, and feeding it and caring for it and learning all about that, sitting up with a sow all night long while she was having pigs … that first record book that I filled out, keeping up with income and expense and using some of the profit to buy a few cows, giving that first speech that I ever gave in front of somebody, learning parliamentary procedure.” The latter would serve him well when presiding over the Arkansas senate.
He said that acquiring technical skill through the FFA was helpful but character skills were even more important “what I call the soft skills, the work ethic, and the responsibility, and the discipline, and the teamwork in, all these working in these contests and raising these animals, the things that you learn. And then I also say, learning how to win, and learning how to not win, because it's all part of it. It's just so important. And the skills that that these young people learn will serve them well for the rest of their life.” OYEA membership, he said, could give students who may be struggling with mental illness a sense of purpose which may help them in their recoveries.
Maloch closed by comparing OYEA’s role to that of sower in Christ’s parable who found that the seed which fell in fertile soil grew best. “Whoever has ears, let him hear. I'm here to tell you that these young people that are here tonight, and those others that are involved in youth education programs, agriculture, education programs, they’re fertile soil, and you and your efforts of supporting them and encouraging them both financially and with what you've done--and I commend you for what you've done and also the encouraging word and mentoring them. It will produce fruit multiple times over.”
After raffle winners were announced, next on the program came the recognition of students. First Dacey Faulkner, a seventh grader, was awarded the prize for selling the most tickets to the banquet (200) and Ainsley Rothenberger, an eighth grader who sold 100 tickets, placed second. Then Dennis Guidry, agricultural sciences teacher for Prescott Public School called the students of OYEA to the front to be recognized one by one for their success in livestock showings. He also made news by acknowledging the students currently in eighth grade had talked him into remaining in his job until their graduation.
The Pork loin entree was provided by Tyson Foods and smoked and cooked by the Prescott Fire Department. The Prescott Police Department provided the side items of beans and potato salad, while the rolls were provided by Hope Baking. Various meats from animals raised by the students were on sale during the event.
The rest of the evening was spent on a short auction, called by Maloch and a Bucket Raffle Drawing. Cory Dice of Farm Credit said the night's raffles, auctions and drawings had raised $7,200 for the OYEA program, which added up to a $30,000 take for the night.
