Kyra Adams Earns Prestigious Agricultural Merit

Courtesy Phto: Kyra Adams Recieving Award

Linda Relyea
PR Department

Adams State College Kyra Adams’ burning desire for agriculture was awarded on the National level.
Adams, an agricultural business and accounting major, has been an active member of Future Farmers of America since her freshman year in high school. FFA is an organization “full of leadership opportunities to help young agriculturalists decide how they will benefit agriculture in their life,” said Adams.
Now a college sophomore, she has been selected to receive the American FFA degree, the highest accomplishment available from the organization. Only one out of 5,500 members will receive this award.
It has been a long journey for her to reach this level of achievement; she earned her Green Hand degree as a freshman, her Chapter degree as a sophomore, and her State degrees by her junior year.
Each of these degrees has different requirements, but the main focus is on leadership experience, as well as supervised agricultural experience programs. Adams earned these hours by working for her dad on the family farm throughout high school, and during her junior and senior year, she was employed at Southern Colorado Livestock in Monte Vista. In the last 18 months, she has been working at Sorum Tractor Company in Alamosa. She operates large farm equipment, such as balers and windrowers. She also completed four years of agricultural education and community service hours.
Adams didn’t join FFA to receive awards. She joined because she is passionate about agriculture, and FFA gave her the opportunity to study it while in high school and to “be exposed to leadership and other people and places,” she said.
She acknowledges that FFA taught her a plethora of things beyond agriculture, such as public speaking, leadership, planning, and Parliamentary Procedure, which will help her to be successful in any field of work.
Overall, Adams reflected that receiving the American FFA degree “has been a goal of [hers] since [her] freshman year of high school, and now is a reality.”
She received the award on Saturday, Oct. 22, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Adams hopes to use this award to pursue a career in farming, but she isn’t certain what her future holds.