By Holly Spangler, AAEA 2014 Past President
The year was 1997. I was an Ag Relations Council intern in Washington, D.C., about to start my senior year in college. No less than a half dozen people I met that summer said, “Hey, you need to go to the AAEA meeting in Chicago. You’ll meet people. You might get a job.”
So I came back to campus, talked to an ag com friend. She was on board. Talked to our advisor. He found us money (shout out to John Deere: it was some kind of student support fund they provided). We drove to Chicago, stayed at the Hotel-InterContinental. Two farm girls could not have felt more fancy.
Mike Wilson, AAEA 2017 Past President.
He is also the director of content for the
Farm Futures market commentary
and Farm Progress.
I met Mike Wilson, then-editor at Prairie Farmer. Andy Markwart had left for the Furrow over the summer and he was looking for a field editor. I was looking for a job. We sat down in a ballroom and had a job interview. It sounded really promising. I went back upstairs and told my friend and we screamed and jumped on the bed.
That ballroom interview led to a writing test, which led to a job offer, which led to a career I’ve been in for the past 23 years.
And ever since, I’ve tried hard to make it to AMS, minus a few years when I had babies at home. Even now, those babies are teenagers and getting away is still hard – but it’s always, always worth it. Why?
I come home inspired. Ready to write better. Ready to work harder. Ready to try something new from someone I heard.
I come home with better respect for our process, and for how I can do it better.
I come home thinking about all those hallway conversations with great writers who’ve turned into great friends. Thinking about conversations around a table with a great photographer who I might never be like but can sure try that different angle they showed us.
I come home proud of our industry. Proud of the work we do and the people we are, and the tiny little difference we can make in the world. Proud of the new young people coming into it.
And I come home hopeful. Because there may just be a student among all those ACT members who meets someone, gets a job, launches a career. And that’s a pretty great thing to come out of AMS.
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Holly Spangler is an executive editor with Farm Progress and an editor of Prairie Farmer Magazine.