{"id":78,"date":"2012-01-06T13:40:51","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T20:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wyomingextension.org\/agambassadors\/?p=78"},"modified":"2012-01-06T13:40:51","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T20:40:51","slug":"you-can-make-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/you-can-make-a-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"You Can Make A Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Barlow\"<\/a>
Kailey Barlow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hey everyone!\u00a0 My name is Kailey Barlow and although this is only my third year at UW, I have senior credit standing and am looking forward to graduating in December of 2012.\u00a0 I am originally from Big Piney, Wyoming where I grew up on a cattle ranch.\u00a0 With that being said, agriculture has always been a part of my life and so the decision to pick a major within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources was not difficult.\u00a0 I am an agricultural business major with a double minor in finance and banking financial systems, in hopes of one day working as an insurance agent or loan officer.\u00a0 At UW, I am an Ag Ambassador, the President of Wyoming Collegiate Cattle Women, and a member of the junior honorary, Iron Skull.\u00a0 I also am serving the state as the 2011 Wyoming Beef Ambassador.\u00a0 Aside from school, I love working on the ranch and riding my horses.\u00a0 In addition to that, I also spend my summers volunteering as a 4-H leader and working with the youth in the community as well as working in the Sublette County Fair Office as a programming and administrative assistant, a job I truly enjoy.\u00a0 One more thing that I\u2019m passionate about is advocating for what you believe.\u00a0 So, get out there and speak up, you can make a difference!<\/p>\n

We all know that there are several issues facing agriculture today.\u00a0 If we want agriculture to continue to be a part of our lives and the lives of future generations; we have to make our voices heard.\u00a0 Advocating for what you believe in is very important, but possibly what is more important is advocating the right way and making sure the message you are portraying is delivered in a positive manner.\u00a0 Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to advocate for the beef industry and I have learned a ton about how, when, where, and why to advocate.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, if you are going to advocate for an industry, it is important to be well educated that industry.\u00a0 Just because you grew up on a cattle ranch does not mean you know everything about the industry.\u00a0 So, in order to better educate yourself on an industry, speak to professionals in the industry that already actively advocate, go to industry conventions, or find information about that industry online.\u00a0 If you are interested in advocating for the beef industry, I would highly recommend completing the Masters of Beef Advocacy training, which is free and offered online at http:\/\/www.beef.org\/mastersofbeefadvocacy.aspx<\/a>.\u00a0 Although I am not familiar with some of the other industries, I am sure many of them offer similar trainings.<\/p>\n

Learning how to advocate is also important.\u00a0 At times, it is very difficult to not become defensive when advocating.\u00a0 Possibly one of the most important things to remember when advocating is that you do not just want to spill a ton of facts.\u00a0 Instead, connect to the other person, (or group of people) then tell them a real-life story with just a few facts.\u00a0 No matter what you do or say, there are always going to be some people who are strongly opposed to the industry you are advocating for.\u00a0 However, it is important to remain positive in your discussion and end the conversation on a good note.<\/p>\n

As with everything else, becoming a good advocate takes practice, but if you are passionate about something it will come fairly quickly.\u00a0 Even though at times it feels as if your one voice cannot make a difference, when you combine it with everyone else\u2019s voice, it makes a huge difference!\u00a0 So, I encourage all of you to go out and advocate for whatever you are passionate about, especially if it is about agriculture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey everyone!\u00a0 My name is Kailey Barlow and although this is only my third year at UW, I have senior credit standing and am looking forward to graduating in December of 2012.\u00a0 I am originally from Big Piney, Wyoming where I grew up on a cattle ranch.\u00a0 With that being said, agriculture has always been … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ag-ambassadors","category-ambassador-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Le20-1g","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}