Dave Maples: Thoughts from Dave

Dave Maples Executive Vice President

The Kentucky Junior Cattlemen’s Association held the 18th annual Fall Classic event this past month in Lexington. As I watched the event take place over a beautiful Kentucky weekend the memories of my childhood raced through my mind. I am a product of the youth livestock programs. Mainly 4-H and then FFA as well as the Junior Angus program. I am proud of being a livestock kid. I learned many lessons, most all very good and enjoyable, and they lead to bigger and better things. As I watched the young people ride their bicycles around the stockyards and explore places that they maybe should not have been exploring. I flashed back to doing the same thing just in a different time and location. This was a piece of growing up. These young people were building friendships and they were exploring new things that they had never seen before or maybe they had seen them but now they were not under mom and dad’s direct supervision. I have watched this one young man for a couple of years now and it is really no telling how many miles he has ridden his bicycle around the stockyards. I would bet you that he would come closer to forgetting to bring his heifer to the show than he would his bike. I was ring side, in the parking lot or behind the tent for the better part of two and a half days. I observed and interacted with several of the young people that participated. Some I have developed a relationship with and have written letters for internships or vet school. It really makes me proud to see these young people doing what I grew up doing. Their work ethic and communication skills are very good. You could literally see the confidence level rise as the weekend progressed with some of the participants. If you read Kevin Laurent’s article in the October issue of Cow Country, Kevin talked about his experience with coaching the All-Star Livestock Judging team. His last paragraph was a reflection on his time spent with this group of young people. Kevin stated that, “the folks in charge, have the responsibility to protect and support these types of youth activities.” He went on to explain, “that it is these type programs that teach life skills and assist us in passing on knowledge and wisdom to our next generation.” Kevin’s next sentence was the one that really resonated with me, “The next generation of kids are not the problem. We need to make sure that we are not the problem. If we do our part and then get out of the way, they’ll take it from here.” Kevin you are spot on because the young people that I was around at the Junior Cattlemen’s Fall Classic are who I want to be like. I am proud of the leadership at KCA for making the investments into the youth livestock programs with the biggest commitment being a staff position that is directly involved in education. We are fortunate to have Bradon Burks on our team in this position. Bradon is a product of the youth livestock programs. It will be fun to see where our junior cattlemen and youth programs go under Bradon’s leadership.