FFA helped broaden Wellston senior Kaden James’ life, though it didn’t start out so easily, he likes to joke.
It’s a long family tradition on his father’s side.
“We’re involved in two major things. Kind of tracing back to my grandpa, even my great grandpa, and that’s ag and the military. And I’m not the most athletic or the most coordinated, so military was off the grid for me,” he said.
Out of the blue one day, his grandfather -- who is involved in 4-H in the Panhandle -- got a sheep for another kid to show. The student in question became injured and couldn’t do it, so the sheep ended up with Kaden.
“The sheep thing, to make a long story short, did not go well,” he joked.
He was ready to hang up his showing days when his family moved to Wellston in the third grade, but Kaden’s dad wanted him to give it another shot. It turns out, he only needed to find the right animal -- cattle.
He fell in love, and that’s when FFA helped him to really understand the world around him.
“(FFA) helped me to look at a lot of things that are more nuanced than I think a lot of us appreciate inside of not just the agricultural industry, but in the way that everybody’s kind of connected together,” he said. “Especially in small hometown grassroots communities and how they build each other up because those are the little building blocks that kind of make everything around us turn.”
It’s definitely helped push him in certain directions. Kaden is attending Oklahoma State University next year and plans to major in agribusiness with a pre-law option.
While he’s not exactly sure where that will take him, he said he has time to figure it out.
His FFA advisor Marty Coulson said Kaden has a lot of potential and Godgiven talen that he can achieve anything he sets his mind to. What stands out the most to him is Kaden’s maturity, character and intellect.
Coulson added that Kaden has always pushed himself to be the best he can at whatever he’s involved in, be it school or FFA. He also has a strong network of friends and peers that he turns to for advice and direction.
“My prayer for Kaden is that he will continue to seek God’s input in leading and directing his life,” he said. “I also want him to be happy and confident in his ability and set extremely high goals for himself. There isn’t anything this young man cannot accomplish in life if he sets his goals and priorities at a high level.”
Kaden certainly seems intent on keeping busy and high standards. Outside of FFA and speech contests, he went to Capital Camp and helped run a mock legislation in the House and Senate last summer. Kaden is also on the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Board Youth Advisory Council. There are about 18 high school seniors from across the state who meet once a month to speak with ODAF professionals and industry leaders.
Oh, and there’s also working cattle. Outside of showing -- which he jokingly called a glorified beauty pageant for rednecks -- his family runs a small cattle ranch, though Kaden said it’s not so much a business as they only really sell locally. It’s something that keeps him connected to his roots.
His mother’s side is Cherokee and Osage, and they raised cattle when they were moved to the reservations in Oklahoma.
He said the tradition was passed down all the way to his grandfather, who sold the land when he got cancer when Kaden was around 10.
“Our family kind of moved away from an Ag background around that time, but they found a way to keep it going through me,” he said “It’s kind of nice to be able to connect to the parts of my family that I didn’t even know existed in that way, and since I love it at the same time and love doing it, it’s just more the merrier.”
Despite calling it a beauty pageant, there is more to showing cattle, Kaden admits, before launching into just some of the ins and outs. He said the most important part is not necessarily being out in the ring, but everything leading up to that.
“Getting them used to you, getting them conditioned, getting them to trust you. Because I mean, ultimately at the end of the day, the judge is looking at the animal, and there’s only so much that you can do about that,” he said.
There are constraints like money, the amount of time you can put into it. At the end of the day, he said you might as well get into a species that you love, find people who appreciate you and want to see you do well, and they’ll invest in you.
“And then do everything that you can if you enjoy it in order to make sure that turns out maybe not perfect, but as best as possible,” he said.