Director Spotlight
FOLLOWING HER PASSION TSCRA Director Missy Bonds shares her voice on behalf of cattle raisers. By Sarah Harris
A
t the ripe age of eight, Missy Bonds informed her father she would grow up to be a rancher. Since then, the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association director has worked hard to fulfill that declaration — serving in a prominent role within her family’s beef cattle operation and rising through the leadership ranks of member organizations. “I love this industry,” Bonds says. “I love being involved and feeling that my voice has made a difference.”
in history,” she says. “Because of my involvement on that committee, I was fortunate enough to represent cattlemen, the committee and TSCRA on the White House lawn for the signing of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement in 2020.”
Missy Bonds, pictured second from
Bonds and her two sisters are thirdgeneration ranchers. She is a Texas Christian University Ranch Management program graduate and a recipient of the Mitzi Lucas Riley Award from the National Cowgirl Museum.
right, stands in front of the U.S. Capitol Before being elected to the Texas & She was raised on the family’s after the signing of the U.S.-MexicoSouthwestern Cattle Raisers Association Bonds Ranch, a commercial cowCanada trade agreement. board of directors, Bonds was part of a calf, stocker and feeding operation team that established a student membership and later headquartered in Saginaw. Today, she helps manage helped develop the organization’s Young Leadership the ranch’s herds spread across 26 Texas counties and Series. She looks forward to putting her leadership skills 13 states. She is also in charge of qualifying any of their to further use within the association. cattle within process verification programs, including the non-hormone treated cattle program, which allows “I am living proof that if you want to be involved with cattle raised without growth hormones to be exported TSCRA, all you have to do is show up and say ‘I want to be involved,’ and they will put you to work,” she says. “I’ve to the European Union. helped bring the YLS program to some college campuses Through her involvement and proximity to Dallasand host ranch gatherings for these groups. It’s important Fort Worth, Bonds says they have hosted several to take the message of how networking leads to career foreign dignitaries at the ranch. Texas & Southwestern success in agriculture. Cattle Raisers Association recognized her interest and “My involvement in TSCRA and NCBA has allowed me knowledge in foreign markets from some of these to find some of my closest friendships, and I don’t come visits and selected Bonds to represent the organization away from a meeting without finding a new business on the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s relationship.” CT international trade committee.
“I was a part of that during one of the most exciting times, during the Trump administration, when we saw more free trade agreements than any other time
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The Cattleman
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Sarah Harris is a freelance writer who splits her time between Austin and her family’s ranch near Tilden.
December 2022