Family Farming Essay Contest
Being a part of the Fourth Annual Utah High School Essay Contest was both rewarding and frustrating. The opportunity to be a small part of helping high school students achieve was quite rewarding. In my role of trying to solicit essay authors, I contacted department chairs and individual teachers at Provo High School in Provo, Utah. Additionally, I submitted the Call for Essays throughout Utah’s homeschool network through it’s elected officers. I am very well connected on facebook to parents of high school students through out Utah through my political connections, so I posted a few times and in a few facebook groups the Call for Essays. I followed up with phone calls offering this opportunity to those in the homeschool network and with a few teachers at Provo High School. With all of the contact I made, I was very disappointed that my efforts didn’t translate into additional essay submissions. The opportunity to study the subject of “Family Farming” and write an essay didn’t seem to appeal to those I marketed to. Could this be because of the fact that we live in a more urban area where family farms seem to be outdated? My husband grew up on a family farm. His experience was hard work that prepared him for life. His family’s farm located in Genola, Utah didn’t survive. The equipment to water the farm and maintain the farm was too cost prohibitive and put their family into too much debt. They sold the land and moved out of the state. I enjoyed the presentations of the essays. The vast creativity of the authors was impressive. I was captivated by the young woman’s presentation that addressed the food stamp program. I felt her information was the most useful and practical. I enjoyed the sharing of the research behind the written words. The young woman who spoke about mountain farming seemed to fit well with what “the Call” suggested would vitally strengthen the ties between the Rocky Mountain region and other mountainous regions around the world. It was my opinion that this was the