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GFB announces YF&R competitive event winners
by Jay Stone
News Reporter
Posted on September 2, 2024 2:14 PM
Cason Anderson, Kaitlyn and Kaleb Marchant, and Cain Thurmond emerged as the winners in the 2024 Georgia Farm Bureau (GFB) Young Farmers & Ranchers (YF&R) competitive events. The winners were announced during the organization’s YF&R Summer Leadership Conference, held July 17-20 on Jekyll Island.
The winners of each award received a John Deere Gator, sponsored in part by Lasseter Equipment Company and a cash prize from Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and GFB. The winners will also receive an expense-paid trip to the 2025 American Farm Bureau convention in San Antonio in January where they will vie for national honors.. The finalists in each competition received cash prizes.
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Finalists for the YF&R Achievement Award are, from left, Paige & Chris Little of White County, Allie & Luke Andrews of Lamar County, and winner Cason Anderson of Houston County. / Photo by Jay Stone
GFB Achievement Award
Cason Anderson, from Houston County, won the GFB YF&R Achievement Award, which recognizes farmers and ranchers aged 18-35 who earn most of their income from production agriculture.
Anderson, a first-generation farmer who lives in Perry, grows pecans on a total of 1,020 acres across multiple counties. He also grows sweet corn and provides custom farm work.
He serves on the Houston County Farm Bureau Board of Directors as the corporate secretary and YF&R chairman. He represented GFB’s 8th District on the state YF&R Committee in 2019-2021.
Anderson has an associates degree in logistics from Middle Georgia State College.
Finalists for the Achievement Award were Luke and Allie Andrews of Lamar County and Chris and Paige Little of White County. The Andrews raise cattle and broiler chickens along with growing hay. The Littles raise beef cattle, grow hay and corn silage.
The finalist families were selected from submitted applications and interviewed by judges on July 17 at the conference.
Finalists for the YF&R Excellence in Agriculture Award, from left, are Austin & Shelby Waldroup of Troup County, winners Kaleb & Kaitlyn Marchant of Oglethorpe County, and Addie & Bryan Tucker of Wilcox County. / Photo by Jay Stone
GFB Excellence in Agriculture Award
Kaitlyn and Kaleb Marchant, from Oglethorpe County, won the YF&R Excellence in Agriculture Award, given to recognize agriculturalists aged 18-35 who are active Farm Bureau members, promote agriculture in their community, and earn most of their income from something other than production agriculture.
The Marchants live in Winterville. Kaitlyn works for the Georgia Department of Education as the North Region ag education coordinator. Kaleb is pursuing a PhD from UGA and manages the beef and sheep unit at the UGA Double Bridges Farm in Winterville.
Finalists for the award were Bryan and Addie Tucker of Wilcox County and Austin and Shelby Waldroup of Troup County.
Bryan works for Ag Technologies in Cordele, and Addie is an ag teacher at Wilcox Elementary School. The couple served on the GFB YF&R Committee in 2022-2023 representing GFB’s 8th District. They serve on the Wilcox County Farm Bureau YF&R Committee of which Addie is a past chairman.
Austin chairs the Troup County Farm Bureau (TCFB) YF&R Committee. Shelby chairs the TCFB Women’s Leadership Committee. Austin operates a dairy farm while Shelby is an ag teacher and FFA advisor at Troup County High School.
The Marchants, Tuckers and Waldroups were selected as finalists for the GFB Excellence in Agriculture Award based on their applications. Each gave presentations to judges at the conference outlining their positions on ag issues and their advocacy efforts.
The 2024 GFB YF&R Discussion Meet finalists, from left, are Newt Gilman of Jackson County, Tyson Strickland of Madison County, Bristol Peterson of Wilcox County and winner Cain Thurmond of Jackson County. / Photo by Jay Stone
GFB Discussion Meet
Cain Thurmond, from Jackson County, won the YF&R Discussion Meet. The discussion meet is a series of committee-style meetings in which contestants hash over issues and solutions related to a specific ag-related topic. Thurmond emerged from a field of 29 contestants from across the state.
Thurmond is a system relationship manager with Farm Credit Services of America. He and his wife, Whitney, live in Jefferson. The Thurmonds own the Storey Garden & Grove, a Christmas tree farm scheduled to open winter 2026. They also have a small pecan orchard.
The other contest finalists were Newt Gilman of Jackson County, Dr. Tyson Strickland of Madison County, and Bristol Peterson of Wilcox County. Gilman is a farm loan specialist at the state USDA Farm Service Agency office in Athens. Strickland is a veterinarian who owns and operates Comer Veterinary Hospital and Custom Livestock Solutions. Peterson works for a trucking logistics company and manages Anna’s Garden Farm with her husband.
In the first round of the discussion meet, competitors discussed how Farm Bureau can continue to provide value and welcome members from across the diverse sectors of modern agriculture. For the second round, the topic was how young farmers and ranchers can gain access to land to expand their operations.
In the Sweet 16 round, the discussions centered on how farmers can diversify their financial portfolio and find new revenue sources. In the Final Four, which featured the winners of each of four Sweet 16 rooms, competitors sought ideas to help county Farm Bureaus plan for the future.
Torrie Reed of Gilmer County won the YF&R Collegiate Discussion Meet, prevailing against Jesse Cronic of Jackson County, Joey Blackstock of Jackson County and Adam Caudell of Habersham County.
They were the top four collegiate contestants in the YF&R Discussion Meet and competed in the first-ever GFB Collegiate Final Four, which focused on how Farm Bureau can work with energy companies, local governments and rural communities to increase domestic energy production, minimize loss of agricultural land and protect private property rights. Reed now advances to the AFBF Collegiate Discussion meet, to be held at the 2025 AFBF Fusion Conference next March in Denver.