On Tuesday evening, April 4, AgTexas Farm Credit Services awarding $11,000 in scholarships at its ninth annual AgTexas Ag Youth Scholarship awards program at the FiberMax Center for Discovery in Lubbock.
AgTexas honored eight graduating high school seniors who have excelled in their 4-H clubs and FFA chapters, each with a $1,000 scholarship. The $8,000 is part of the almost $270,000 in scholarships and gift cards being awarded through the education initiative AgTexas created nine years ago.
Combined with $16,000 in graduate-level scholarships, AgTexas has awarded almost $52,000 this spring.
Those scholarship recipients are Ally Riedel (Smyer FFA), Channing Howard (Seminole FFA/ Gaines County 4-H), Hadyn Scott (New Home FFA), Patrick Ritz (New Home FFA), Paige Harder (Idalou FFA), Sarah Achterberg (Lubbock-Cooper FFA), Swayzee Harlan (Wellman-Union FFA), and Tyler Parkinson (Whitharral FFA/Hockley County 4-H).
In addition to the eight South Plains-area $1,000 scholarship winners, the 17 regional honorees each received a $100 gift card.
These gift card recipients included five honorees from the Levelland area: Carson Wood (Hockley County 4-H), Tyler Parkinson (Whitharral FFA/ Whitharral4-H), Ally Riedel (Smyer FFA), Stratton Schertz (Ropes FFA), and Emma Ayers (Whiteface FFA).
The program has awarded nearly $200,000 in scholarships to graduating seniors and graduate students in the markets where AgTexas has offices – Amarillo, Brownfield, Burleson, Dumas, Hereford, Hillsboro, Levelland, Lubbock, Plainview, Seminole, and Stephenville. This is the second year AgTexas has awarded graduate-level scholarships to previous Ag Youth of the Month honorees.
This year’s AgYouth Distinguished Alumni Scholarship recipient is Kate Munson, a 2021 Shallowater High School graduate, who received a $3,000 scholarship to help pursue a degree in agricultural communications and agribusiness at Oklahoma State University. Upon graduation, she desires to attend law school in Texas and wants to work in the agricultural industry writing policy for the state of Texas.
“We are honoring some of the best and brightest young minds in Texas with this program,” says AgTexas Farm Credit CEO Kayla Robinson. She adds, “These students represent the next generation of agriculture in Texas and the United States. It’s our privilege to pay tribute to their achievements thus far and encourage them for their future and the future of agriculture.”
Robinson continues, “We love the excitement of celebrating with energetic 4-H and FFA students because they bring such positivity into the room. Graduation season is a special time in their lives, and we enjoy hearing about their hopes and dreams.”
AgTexas also presented a new award – the Ag Youth Leader of the Year with a $1,000 check – to Rebecca McEndree, FFA advisor at Shallowater High School. In her 14 years of teaching (including five years at Shallowater), she has coached an impressive number of FFA students to win state and national championships. Her students have received more than $1 million in college scholarship earnings over the course of her career.
Outstanding 4-H and FFA high school students received prominent recognition for their dedication to agriculture. These 4-H and FFA programs help introduce many of their participants to agriculture, allowing students to learn and apply science and technology to make farming and ranching more productive and offer them promising futures.
“We are very pleased to have created the Ag Youth of the Month program because it brings positive attention to young people who are investing in our state and nation as well as their own futures,” concluded Robinson.
AgTexas serves approximately 3,500 members in 43 counties through its Panhandle, South Plains, and Central Texas regions.
AgTexas is a rural lending cooperative, providing financing for real estate and operating capital, as well as insurance, leasing, and cash management services for the Ag industry since 1934. Today, AgTexas serves approximately 3,500 members in 43 counties through 11 offices, including Lubbock, Brownfield, Levelland, and Seminole. In the South Plains, AgTexas serves Cochran, Crosby, Gaines, Garza, Hockley, Lubbock, Lynn, Terry, and Yoakum counties.