Life is our greatest teacher, if you pay attention
By Trent Loos

“This is the way America started out” was a direct quote from Kathy Tucker at the 2nd Annual Houston E. Mull Memorial FFA Scholarship Cattle Drive that took place November 5, 2005 at the Mull farm near Marshall, MO. We had 201 people riding horses and 4 wagons trailing cattle just like your favorite John Wayne movie told you we should. Some very interesting and educational occurrences made this event so much more than simply an annual celebration in memory of a special 15-year-old agriculturalist. It has shown us the perfect venue for telling the story of Rural America.

Nearly 600 people, including those that helped trail the cattle, gathered for an evening celebration of fire-grilled steaks and all the trimmings. They generously supported the benefit auction, which generated just short of $5000 for the FFA Scholarship Fund. As remarkable as all of that was, the presence of one young lady from Florida was the most rewarding. Kelly Tucker is a 27-year-old Cystic Fibrosis survivor and the recipient of  Houston Mull’s lungs following his untimely death. Kelly spent the entire weekend visiting with people and learning more about Houston’s life. She now understands why her preferences in life have changed and she is suddenly craving beef instead of chicken.

A conversation I had with Kelly’s mother Kathy will stick will me most as we put the cattle drive farther back into our bank of memories. Their family has always lived in larger cities, yet when they arrived in Marshall, MO on Friday Kathy said they felt like they were home. The hospitality was unlike any they had ever experienced and not just from the people she met at the cattle drive but every person they encountered along the way. Kathy rode on one of the wagons and told me it was quite possibly the most educational experience of her life.

She said, “These people know the difference between a soybean field and a cornfield. They told us how the planting process takes place. They taught me what a heifer was, why cows have ear tags and why it is important to move cattle off the summer grass. Things I had never once thought about in my life.” It was like a light bulb just switched on “this is what gives us dinner on our table”.”

She learned a lot from us but what did I learn from her? I learned that our life in Rural America is the envy of many in our great nation and we fail to spend enough time preserving what we too often take for granted. I shared with Kathy that my oldest daughter has five kids in her second grade class and would most likely have five kids until graduation, unless somebody moves away. Kathy was in awe as she told me her daughter Kelly’s graduating class had 2000 kids in it. If that isn’t motivation to get more active in fighting to save small rural schools, I don’t know what is. How is it that we as parents can allow elected officials, in the name of saving money, to rob our kids of the best education possible?

Life is an accumulation of our own experiences. Kathy said she felt like they had just visited The Little House on the Prairie. It could have something to do with the wagon pulled by a team of draft horses. It may have been the family atmosphere that encompassed the day. It might have been the smiling faces that greeted you at every turn. Or it could be simply the little known segment of our society that still puts the human element at the top of the “priority list of life.” The strange bit of irony here is that it took the loss of the life of a one tremendous young farmer to teach others that life itself is what you make of it. Houston E. Mull, in 15 short years, taught so many that a giving spirit is truly what makes life in Rural America unlike anything else in the world today.

 

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