The conventional wisdom is if you need to get something done – and done right – ask the busiest people you know.
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Around Winchester, Kentucky, in the US, that honour belongs to Serena and Brennan Gilkison who aren’t letting any of that fabled bluegrass grow under their feet.
Both are ag graduates from the University of Kentucky (go Wildcats) and its ag leadership program.
Serena and Brennan manage a diverse family farming operation in Clark County that grows beef cattle, tobacco, corn, soybeans, raspberries, and an experimental crop that someday could see hemp fashioned into body panels on America’s sports car – the Chevrolet Corvette – which is built not too far down the road.
Gilkison Farm also runs a farm store twice a month, selling a range of value-added products like jams and jellies as well as their appropriately-named Awesome Bourbon BBQ sauce and Beer Cheese spread.
“You could say that our irons are ALL hot,” Brennan said during my recent visit to central Kentucky to talk storytelling and the resilience of small farming communities, at the International Leadership Alumni conference.
Talk about giving ag a “red-hot go” – these folks even find time to host groups of up to 300 in their barn for special event lunches and dinners.
And as if instilling the same passion and pride in farming in their three young children wasn’t enough, Serena and Brennan extend the same courtesy to all the third graders in Clark County.
“For a couple of days each year we give these eight-year-olds a chance to experience Kentucky agriculture first hand,” Serena said.
“There’s not much more rewarding for us each year than to share our love for what we do, and plant some seeds in the growing minds of young children.”
Central Kentucky is home to not only the eponymous fried chicken company, a range of the world’s most popular bourbons (and tobacco), it is also one of the centres of the global thoroughbred racing industry.
There must be a state by-law that insists that every farm features immaculately maintained barns and fencing as well as Kentucky Bluegrass tended like it was a golf course.
And it’s such a progressive farming state that by comparison to Kentucky’s Commissioner for Agriculture, the Gilkisons are almost “over-the-hill”.
At 33, fellow University of Kentucky ag graduate, Ryan Quarles, is the youngest state cabinet minister in the US.
The two-time Kentucky tractor driving champion presented me with a small memento of my visit – a hat badge – with the words “Kentucky Proud”.
Damned straight - like his ploughing!
– Freelance journalist and consultant, Peter Lewis
