Oklahoma’s LeFlore County Farm Bureau and Rogers County Farm Bureau were each recognized with County Activities of Excellence Awards at the 2025 American Farm Bureau convention in San Antonio in January.
The counties were two of 24 counties recognized by AFBF for their commitment to offering quality programming to their counties to promote Farm Bureau and support their local agriculture communities.
“It’s a pleasure to recognize these outstanding volunteer-driven programs,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall. “The county leaders responsible for these award-winning programs are committed to supporting rural communities and helping their urban neighbors better understand agriculture.”
LeFlore County Farm Bureau was recognized for their Women’s Leadership Committee’s involvement in the local All for One special needs livestock show held during the local fair. The event gave more than 80 special needs students the opportunity to experience showing animals in the ring.
“It gave the students a chance to be acknowledged and celebrated, and it was just truly amazing,” said Susan Schaufelberger, LeFlore County WLC member.
“For anyone who likes to volunteer their time, it is just very rewarding,” Schaufelberger said. “You get those rewards back ten-fold, sometimes touching someone’s life who may never have access to a farm, a ranch or anything agricultural.”
Rogers County Farm Bureau earned a CAE award for their steer and hog feed-out contest, which gave area students an opportunity to feed a steer or hog to be scored solely for carcass merit and rate of gain.
Rogers County member Chris Hoskins said the event teaches students real-world skills required to raise quality animals that will provide healthy and nutritious protein to consumers in the same way that farmers and ranchers in their area work every day.
“I think it’s an important program that lets kids go from start to finish,” Hoskins said. “At the end of it they have a product they can feed their families with or sell and help feed people in their communities with.”
Hoskins also had the opportunity to share details about the event to an audience of Farm Bureau members on the Cultivation Center Stage in the AFBF trade show.
“I was honored to be one of the counties they brought on stage,” Hoskins said of the opportunity to share their program. “We got to have a mic and be in front of everyone, and we had several people come up to us afterwards and say, ‘Hey, we need something like this.’
“There’s a lot of great programs here – programs like ours, programs for bringing people outside of agriculture into it and telling our agricultural story.”
