J-E Editor
It’s been a eventful last twelve months for Webster County native Cameron Edwards, who competed in both the state and national Farm Bureau Discussion Meet events. Last week he was selected for the 2015-16 American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Partners in Agricultural Leadership (PAL) honors program.
The focus of AFBF’s PAL program is to enhance participants’ leadership skills and aid them in discovering how they can best use their abilities for the benefit of agriculture. The program offers young farmers and ranchers the opportunity to continue building their skills after they have served as AFBF Young Farmers & Ranchers (YF&R) Committee members/officers or competed in national YF&R events.
“The new PAL class represents the very ‘best of the best’ among today’s farmers, ranchers and agri-business professionals,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “We look forward to working with them as they embark on an exciting journey that will equip them as vital contributors to our agricultural outreach efforts.”
Edwards will join nine other young agricultural leaders from across the country in the 2015-2016 PAL class, a high-level, executive training program that prepares participants to represent agriculture in the media, in public speaking, in congressional testimony and other advocacy arenas. PAL training involves four learning modules designed to develop specific leadership skills while exploring components of leadership and its theories and philosophies. The modules build on one another over the two years of the program and include intense, in-person, hands-on training. Program graduates are also given opportunities to step forward and promote awareness about issues important to farmers and consumers.
Edwards is currently employed as the general manager of VOCARS, and environmental recycling services company headquartered in Louisville and operating across the state.
Through his work at VOCARS, the Georgetown College graduate oversees the purchasing and collection of raw materials that are then processed and brokered into industries that manufacture products ranging from biofuels to livestock feed.
Edwards also works as part of his family’s 5,000-acre upland wing-shooting preserve and agritourism business, Winghaven Lodge, where they raise and harvest varied species of upland birds and waterfowl by the hundreds of thousands and breed a wide variety of hunting dogs.
In December he won Kentucky Farm Bureau’s 2014 Discussion Meet, and went on to represent the Commonwealth at the national competition in San Diego, California. He finished in the top 16.
Reach MATT HUGHES
at 270-667-2068 or
matt@journalenterprise.com
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