Junior Champions Set Example of Hard Work as Future of Mississippi Agriculture.
Only the best makes it here…only, the champions. And to make it to this show ring takes hours of discipline and hard work when the bright lights are off and there are no judges watching your every move.
“There’s a lot of times you say I don’t want to get up this morning or I don’t want to get out there and do that today and it definitely gets tiring, you know,” said J.R. Sims, Jasper County champion. “But you got to have the love and passion for it for sure.”
Jasper County’s J-R Sims has shown pigs and cattle since he was four years old. Today, he raised the reserve champion Hereford hog. He wants to go to law school one day. J-R’s father says he has set an example for his younger siblings even though life hasn’t always been easy.
“We lost their mother about five and a half years ago to cancer and we’ve all stayed super close, but they work very hard, and you can tell they were always good kids, always did whatever I asked them,” said Joseph Sims, J.R.’s father. “But you could tell they’ve taken it to another level as far as their daily work ethic and taking care of their projects and making decisions for those animals.”
“I try to set an example every day, you know,” said J.R. Sims. “The days we get home from school and they say, you know, we don’t want to go do this today or we don’t want to get up and feed this morning, you know, I try to set an example to just get up and do it anyways, you know be able to have that discipline and responsibility to continue doing it. So, I hope I’ve set a good example.”
Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation President Mike McCormick says the students here are the future leaders of agriculture in Mississippi. It’s the reason why Farm Bureau is a big promoter of the Sale of Junior Champions.
“We’re only one and a half percent of the population now, so to be able to mentor these kids coming through this sale to learn how to be the winners and learn how to do all the things that was necessary through this whole process to get them here, we’re a leadership organization and couldn’t be a better place for us to be today,” said McCormick.
These champions are proud of their rural roots, and most plan to use their winnings to benefit their communities and state after college.
“The fact that I will be able to keep going with my education, and then once I get out of college, I hope to put everything I have back into kids,” said Emma Grace Putnam, Sunflower County champion. “I want to be a nurse, but I want to be a NICU nurse because I have a strong belief that if kids don’t get an option to speak up for themselves that I want to be that voice for them.”
“I plan to go to either Jones or Mississippi College and pursue elementary education,” said Aimry Blackwell, Smith County champion. “Yes, but still have a farm background and all.”
“I’m planning to go to college to be a vet and I’m planning to start breeding goats,” said Marley Parker, Sunflower County champion.
With students like these going above and beyond, the future of Farm Bureau and Mississippi agriculture is in good hands.
“I do it because I love it. I enjoy it,” said Putnam. “We raise sheep and it’s just an ultimate accomplishment to see something that I raised, that was born on my farm be here or be at the show. That’s why I do.”