Not only did I reach my goal of 23 books in 2023, I crushed that goal with 27. Audio books helped me get through so many books this year. I love reviewing the books through the GoodReads app, and the app makes it so easy to look back at what I read.

I had four goals this year, and two didn’t happen. One of my unaccomplished goals was to find a local book club. If you have a book club in Lubbock, please invite me. I promise to not dominate conversation, and I bake!
These were my 2023 goals:

• Read 23 books ✅
• Find a local book club that meets in person. ❌
• Read one book that is considered a classic. ❌
• Read four books that are released this year. ✅
  • I’m giving myself leeway on this one, because I read several books that had been released in the last 12 months, but not necessarily 2023.

I’m dividing the books up into broad categories of fiction and non-fiction. I read more fiction than non this year, so I’ll start with that category. The books are listed in order of most favorite to least favorite. Just because one of these wasn’t a favorite doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. If I don’t like a book, I just won’t finish nor review it. The non-fiction category was filled with greatness. It was hard to rank them, they were all so good. 

Fiction

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

Last year’s favorite fiction, and this year’s top two books are by Kate Quinn. Historical fiction is my favorite genre, and she’s quickly becoming a favorite writer. Also see The Alice Network, a World War I story. I chose The Diamond Eye as my favorite because I just couldn’t quit talking about it and recommending it. I’m calling this a required book for fans of historical fiction, World War II stories, people interested in the Soviet Union, or basically any American. Excellent storytelling, research, description, and captivating writing. The book is about a Soviet sniper during the Second World War that just happened to be a woman. The story is true and it’s fascinating. It has great twists along the way, and although the author takes some liberties with embellishing the story, it’s very close to the truth.

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
This book could almost go into the non-fiction category. Read the author’s notes at the end (and you have permission to skip ahead to do this, it won’t ruin the book) to see how she wove fictional elements with real characters to create a fascinating read. The research that went into this book was incredible. It follows three young women that worked as code breakers in England during World War II. The characters are strongly based on real people, and it’s so captivating. This was also the lengthiest book I read this year, so it took me a while. 

Coronation Year by Jennifer Robson
Loved this! Such a great historical fiction novel about three fictional characters whose lives intersect as London prepared for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The book has endearing characters, a quickly-moving plot line, a nice twist, and a happy ending – all the things! Plus, the history of the queen was an added bonus for me as I love all things royal. Monarchists and lovers of English culture will like this book. This author has another book – The Gown – that I read several years ago and absolutely loved. Give this writer a try. 

Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly
Such a great tale of heroism and feminine grit. This is the second book I’ve read from this author, and I’ll read more. Set during World War I, this follows three women’s stories as they dealt with unimaginable hardship. WWII stories are very popular right now, and I love them, but this was an enlightening story of an era in history that doesn’t get as much press. This book is known as the second in the “Lilac Girls” series, but I was about three-quarters through the book before I realized the characters were related. You can read this without reading Lilac Girls and still understand what’s going on. 

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook by Ellen Marie Wiseman

Wow. My mind is blown simply because I cannot believe Willowbrook actually existed and the people living there were treated like animals. The story is set in the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, New York. The author does an excellent job of detailing the conditions in this place, which were awful. It’s hard to read about this piece of history, but Wiseman’s writing and storytelling were so good that I couldn’t put it down. I would say this is history meets thriller. I will be reading more from this author.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley
This is a great whodunnit mystery that will keep you guessing until the end. I “read” the audio book, and I liked it because each chapter was told from the point of view of one character, so the head hopping is done in a very clear way. Each character has its own narrator, which made it even more interesting. The book starts at a private island wedding venue, and someone discovers a body. The entire book will keep you wrapped up wondering who the body is. Then when you find out, you gotta know who the killer is. All questions get answered in this excellent book.

The Reckoning by John Grisham

I read at least one John Grisham book each year, but this didn’t seem like a Grisham book. I think I would categorize this as a historical fiction with a thriller twist. True to Grisham, there is a lawyer in Mississippi (it’s Lucian Wilbanks’ dad for fans of A Time to Kill) and there is a murder, but then the book takes us through a man’s survival story in the World War II Pacific Theater, including the Bataan Death March. The historical aspect was well researched and tells the story of the horror some of our soldiers endured. This is not classic Grisham. It wasn’t my favorite Grisham. But it’s captivating. I listened to the audio book, and it was a great road trip story. 

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes
Very imaginative writing! This book took me a while to get into, but the second half kept me captivated. I would classify this as a psychological thriller. The main character is targeted by a man that works at the library…and then it gets weird. There were a couple places where I got confused or wanted the story scenes to move better, but otherwise this was an intriguing read.

Between Sisters by Kristin Hannah
This was such a sweet book about two sisters that had been estranged for several years. But a family wedding brings something positive for them to focus on and work through their relationship. I truly enjoy Kristen Hannah’s writing. This is a quick read, surprising plot twist, and happy ending.

Long Road to Mercy by David Baldacci
I started reading Baldacci last year, and I continued this year. This is my favorite novel of his so far. I think I was able to relate to the main character, Atlee Pine, better than in his other books. Pine is a lone FBI field agent, stationed in the rural Arizona. Baldacci weaves some Grand Canyon facts into this thriller, and I was hooked. Excellent writing, plot development and research. 

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
This book was a good story. It grabbed my attention early and held it. I kept comparing it to Ng’s very popular book, Little Fires Everywhere, and just didn’t like it as well. I’ll read more from this author, though. She writes beautifully.

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Taylor Jenkins Reid is a master at character development. I got pretty invested in Carrie Soto, even though the story dragged in places. I simply had to find out if she truly was back. 
The audio book features several narrators, which don’t come in until later in the book, and they felt a little out of place. The multiple narrators worked better for Daisy Jones and the Six – which gets a fun shout out. There are also some characters that appear from two other TJR books, and I love that she does that in her writing. This wasn’t Reid’s best book, but it was a fun summer read and a nice break from some of the heavier stuff that I read (see the non-fiction section).

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
This book brought me through a one-month reading rut. This was a nice story about a young woman grieving her mother. She took the trip to Italy she and her mother had planned to take together. It’s a nice, relatable story, but with a huge, fun, completely unexpected plot twist. It was a good summer read.

A Minute to Midnight by David Baldacci
This is the second book in the Atlee Pine series. I really like the characters, the book is suspenseful, and I stayed interested. But I liked the first book in this series better. 

Queen Charlotte by Julia Quinn and Shonda Rhimes
It’s well written and a great story, but if you have seen Queen Charlotte on Netflix, you don’t need to read this book. The show follows the book really well, so it was very repetitive. It contains a lot more details of the characters’ thoughts, but otherwise it was a replay of the show.

Non-Fiction

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
I read this back in March. It had been on my wish list in the Libby app since it was published several months prior. It broke my heart to read his story, and my heart is even more broken knowing that the remaining effects of his illness eventually ended his life. For anyone that has known someone struggling with addiction, this book provides a look inside an addict’s mind. I understand addiction better now, and it’s so so sad. Matthew Perry was so funny, and at times the book is funny. In all, though, it was just so sad to learn how the drugs and alcohol took the funny away. Matthew Perry has been my favorite since his first episode of Friends. Going through, what he called, the Big Terrible Thing, was hard, writing this book took mountains of courage. Enlightening, heartbreaking, funny, sad. Rest peacefully, Matty. 

Spare by Prince Harry
I bought this book the day it was released, and I loved it. You should know – I’m a royal enthusiast and have been since I watched Princess Diana’s wedding with my grandma. I’m a monarchist, Diana devotee, Elizabeth enthusiast, Fergie fanatic, captivated by The Crown, and I’m proud of it. 
It doesn’t matter if I think or if you think that Harry needs to “just get over it,” or if this is what Meghan signed up for, or if you think they were done wrong by the Family. What matters is this is his story, and I wanted his point of view. Was this a compelling page turner that I had to finish in three days? No. I already knew the ending. It was the messy middle I wanted to know about. Finally, we get an idea of what royal life is like on the inside from an insider. And it’s weird. As Harry himself put it “one very large, very ancient, very dysfunctional family.”
At times he contradicted himself, especially when you think about how much he wrote about his hatred of the media…then he uses the media to promote his book. But I don’t care. It was a compelling story about a family who lives and governs in a way that’s so different from what Americans know – and that’s why I’m so fascinated. I’ll wrap up with this. Don’t criticize the book or the Sussexes until you read the book. And I’m still a royal enthusiast.

Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters
I cried watching the obituary coverage of Barbara Walters on December 30, 2022. She is my hero, THE example of a journalist, and a part of American history. In honor of her, I had to read this as soon as it was available from Libby. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know she had written a book until I saw the news coverage of her death. The book was released in 2008 – I was in grad school then, so between theoretical frameworks and research methods, I had zero time for good books. 
Warning: the audio book is 27 hours. You’re gonna need a few road trips for this one. But her life was so interesting that I couldn’t step away for long. Also, she didn’t narrate it, which was a little disappointing, but it was good, nonetheless. 

A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety by Jimmy Carter 
I want it known that I read this book months before Rosalynn Carter died. I listened to it this summer; the audiobook is read by Mr. Carter. And oh, if politicians today were as gentlemanly, humble, kind, and faithful as Jimmy Carter. Although he wrote a book about his presidency shortly after he left office, I liked this because it was a reflection of his whole life. I so appreciate his honesty. He admitted his mistakes but explains them in hindsight. He also shares candid comments about the state of affairs at certain points of history since his presidency. 

Jimmy Carter is a world leader and national treasure. Instead of bellyaching about not being re-elected and calling his successor names, he established the Carter Center and found ways to contribute to our country and world. Mr. Carter was elected the year I was born, so it was enlightening to learn about the things that happened when I was too young to know better.

Cilka’s Journey (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #2) by Heather Morris
This was my first book of 2023, and it tore my heart out. If you read and liked The Tattooist of Auschwitz, you need to read this. It’s the story of one of the characters in that book, written by the same author. Cilka was a prisoner at Auschwitz, then she is imprisoned in Siberia. Her story is just awful, but a testament to the human spirit. I had to know what happened to her, and I got through the book very quickly. 

Finding Me by Viola Davis
A heartbreaking tale of triumph. Viola Davis clawed her way through extreme poverty and a raging alcoholic father to become one of the most renowned actresses of our time. Read this book. It provides great lessons about poverty, the impacts alcoholism has on an addict’s kids, the grind of being an aspiring actor in New York and the poverty associated with it, and the impacts of racism. I feel so enlightened after reading this. I have always liked Viola Davis’s work on screen. Her writing is just as good. She reads the audiobook.

The Ritchie Boys: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the US Army to Fight Hitler by Bruce Henderson
Excellent! The subtitle says it all: the Jews who escaped the Nazis and returned to fight Hitler. The book tells the story of several young men that got out of Germany, mostly in a heartbreaking manner, gained US citizenship, then fought the Nazis. This book took me a while to read, not because it wasn’t good, it was just so sad. I had to take breaks because I needed to read something happy. This should be required reading for every American. God bless those who fought for our country.

Hello Molly!: A Memoir by Molly Shannon

This book, written by the wonderfully hilarious Molly Shannon was so full of heart. I have loved Molly since her SNL days of Mary Kathryn Gallagher, Sally O’Mally, and scores of other characters, so I fully expected this book to make me belly laugh like Amy Pohler’s book. And it did. It also made me cry. Shannon lost her mother, sister, and cousin in a car accident when Molly was only four. Learning her story of how she processed her mom’s death as a little girl just broke my heart. It really helped me understand kids’ grief. 

The book was read by the author, which made it delightfully funny, especially when she did her characters’ voices. It also added a nice depth of emotion when her voice broke when she was telling a sad story.

Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina Totenberg
This was the sweetest book about NPR’s Nina Totenberg’s friendship with one of America’s most powerful women. This isn’t a biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg; rather, it’s Totenberg’s story of her career and her friendships. It’s an easy read, a testament of good journalism, and it teaches you how to be a better friend. The audio book is read by the author. 

My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy by Clint Hill
I love stories of the United States Secret Service, and I read this very close to the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s murder. Clint Hill is the Secret Service agent Mrs. Kennedy reached for when the president was shot in Dallas. They had a great respect and kinship for one other, and it was a pleasure to hear their stories, in his voice. The book is quick and holds attention. I’m looking for more books about the Secret Service, so please recommend!

Camera Girl: The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy by Carl Sferrazza Anthony
I love all things about the Kennedy family (as evidenced by reading two books about them). Like other First Families, they’re the closest thing we have to royalty in the United States, but the Kennedys are elevated a bit. If you want the history of John F., there are dozens of other sources. I liked this book because it focused on Jackie – her youth, adolescence, and her career. Yes -career. She was a newspaper columnist, and a very good one. The book kept me interested, but if you have an interest in this family, I liked the audiobook Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy much better. It was an oral history and Jackie tells it. However, Camera Girl focuses on HER, and I liked that. I learned so much.

Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John Maxwell
The overarching message was clear: lead to help others succeed. The book was succinct. I listened to jt in one day. I think the written book would have been more effective. That way I could have taken it in smaller nuggets and processed it better.

There wasn’t a whole lot this year that I just couldn’t put down, so I would love to find something all-consuming in 2024. I have two goals for the coming year:

• Read 24 books = 24 in 2024
• Find a local book club

Please send me recommendations. I have a long list of books I want to read in Good Reads, but I like hearing suggestions from friends. Also, follow me on Good Reads.

Wrote it, edited it, and I have my very own copy on my desk. This has been one of the most challenging and rewarding chapters (get it?) in my career. I have loved the process and have plans for more books someday, including a novel that is complete, but not published.

The book is called The Crisis Communications Guide for Agriculture, Food, & Natural Resources. I won’t go into the story of how the book came about. It’s in the introduction and acknowledgements of the book. Also, I talked about it a lot in my podcast, which can be found at the end of this post.

When I tell people about the book, I often get “I want to write a book,” or “my life is so bizarre, I should write a book.” I’m here to tell you, you should! And here are my words of encouragement.

Getting Started

Before you start writing, have a topic. If it’s a novel, think of the story you want to tell. If it’s a textbook, think about the research you have amassed that would contribute to a certain group of students. Your audience does not have to be large. I teach a niche subject: agricultural communications. Think regular mass communications with a focus in agriculture/natural resources. It’s very specific and scientific. My book is even more focused than ag communications: it’s risk and crisis communications in agriculture, an extremely specialized style of communicating with a targeted industry of communicators.

I was 44 years old before I felt ready to write this content into a book form. Before that, a textbook was not a goal of mine. So, my first tip is don’t force a book. You need to be ready to write it. And even if you’re ready, do some checking to make sure no one else has written on this topic. There are dozens of books on risk and crisis communications, but none specifically focus on the ag industry, so that’s why I felt like it would be okay to move forward with my idea.

The Writing Process

Starting to write was difficult. I didn’t know where to start. I feel like I stared at a blank Word document for at least six hours trying to think about it. When that happens, schedule interviews. Dig through previous research. Look at other books. Pull information together.

When I teach the risk and crisis communications in agriculture class, we heavily focus on the Agriculture Crisis Management Framework, created by David Doerfert. As I was pulling images and other materials together for the book, I opened that document, and there were the sections for my book: prevention, preparation, recognition, response, evaluation. I added a section called “for the media.” Again, the right approach came to me, so find other things to work on while you’re trying to find the right flow for your book.

I was fortunate enough to apply for and receive a faculty development leave grant from Texas Tech. This is also known as a sabbatical, and I did it in Fall 2021 with the full intention of finishing the whole text – that ended up being such an unrealistic goal for myself. The structure and most of the elements for the chapters were there, but it wasn’t finished at the end of my semester-long sabbatical. I felt like such a foolish failure. I want to go back and have a conversation with the August 2021 version of myself who had no idea what she was doing. A book takes a long time to write, certainly longer than four months. So, in December 2021, I revised my goal to have the book ready to market in the next 12 months.

I owe a great deal of credit to the Texas Tech Faculty Writing Program. It’s a program for faculty to get together at a designated time each week and spend three hours writing for academic purposes:  no email, no class prep, no grocery list making, just writing. In my three-hour weekly increments, I finished the manuscript.

Writing and Organizing

This is a personal preference. Here are some ideas I toyed with to keep me organized:

• One big Word document. I did this for the novel I wrote, so I knew better when I started the textbook. My textbook is 300 pages. Can you imagine scrolling 300 pages to fix one error? I don’t recommend.
• Book writing software. There are several options, but basically, these apps are word processing software made for writers. They’re super helpful, and allow you to organize your notes, outlines, citations, and other elements. Scrivener was recommended to me by a friend, and I hear rave reviews; Grammarly is well loved; Final Draft and Storyist are two other options, but I don’t know much about them.
• Word + good file management. This is the strategy I adopted after visiting with several people in the Faculty Writing Program. It’s very easy to spend a lot of your own money on a book (and I have), and this was one area where I chose to save. I created a word document for every chapter, then had my book units inside one folder. See the photo I took after finishing the initial manuscript for a visual. The printed version of the book looks slightly different. Some chapters got combined, one was added, some were cut completely. On occasion, I couldn’t find information that I knew I had written, which was annoying, but the Mac search tool is pretty good, and eventually I found what I knew I had.

Again, the way you organize is up to you, but do organize somehow. Another tip: keep permission forms for using quotes and/or images. I did an okay job of this, but there were a few forms I never could track down prior to publication. If I didn’t have a form, I deleted the direct quote or image from the book.

Another point of organization is keeping track of interview transcripts, names, and permission forms. If I interviewed you for this book, THANK YOU. If I cited you a lot, you’ll be getting a copy.

Finding a Publisher

Any time is a good time to find a publisher. In the podcast, you’ll hear my friends at XanEdu saying the same thing. Some publishers want a manuscript in the idea phase, others want it finished. Start any time; I started in January 2023.

When I had finished my manuscript, I posted the screenshot of my photos to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter (or whatever its name is), and Instagram. LinkedIn for the win! A colleague at another university tagged a friend of hers that works for a book publisher. I emailed the person, and we talked. That publisher didn’t print in higher ed, but she was so nice to run the list of publishers that had great sales in agriculture and forestry. XanEdu Publishing caught my eye from that list. I emailed them because they had a fun name. I submitted queries to several other publishers, I sent info to some of them, but I liked the personality of the people at XanEdu from the beginning. They were so personable, and we clicked. Finding a publisher is a lot like dating.

Working with the Publisher

Once we moved into more serious talking, XanEdu wanted the complete manuscript. I edited and did some major revisions at that point and turned it in on May 1, 2023. They had it professionally edited, and once I had those, it took me several more weeks to make those corrections. About this: check your ego when it comes to an editor. You hire an editor for a reason, and their job is to make your book better, so let them. Some of those edits felt personal, but they weren’t. I never met the editor, so it couldn’t be personal. I took as much time as I could to make the changes, then submitted.

The next step was page layout. When the book was designed, I received another copy to proof. This is where paranoia sets in. I found so many more mistakes! It was terrifying to know more mistakes could be out there.

I got one final look at the manuscript (found five more mistakes), then to the printer it went. In the middle of all the edits, we worked on the cover. I think it looks pretty cool. The Texas Tech Bookstore had their copies days before the semester started; my copies arrived on my front step. It was sheer joy to open that box and see my work inside.

Now that I have finished this, I feel like I am dripping with wisdom. So here are my additional points I wanted to say to myself and everyone else.

• The book will never be perfect. Although I did not find a typo on first look, they’re probably there.
• If you have purchased this book, please forgive me for any typos or grammar, spelling, punctuation errors. I did not carelessly create the book, but with 300 pages, there is bound to be a mistake.
• Some chapters are too short, and more information is needed. I plan to gather all the mistakes I have made and create a second edition. I could probably even use a guest author for a few of the chapters, but that will come later.
• I am giving myself grace and forgiveness for the mistakes in this book. It is very easy to see what’s wrong, or how I could have done it better, or how I could have worked harder. However, if I would have focused on the negatives, the book would still be in the editing phase.
• There’s a sweet spot between “the book still needs work” and “publish the damn thing.” Ben and Mandy at XanEdu were wonderful in helping me realize it was time to quit picking at the text and publish. And yes, I could still be fussing over the book and making improvements, but those improvements would have been so small that it probably would not have made a big difference.
• I make $5 per book sold. I didn’t write the book for the money. I wanted to get the information swimming in my head out onto paper; I wanted my students to have a text that was relevant to the ag industry; and a book is something that I have wanted to do since I was a kid. Also, the book company only sent me a handful of copies, so I really don’t have many copies in my possession to give away.
• Don’t listen to haters. I have lived in paranoia for about a year now about the places people will poke holes in my book, the typos they’ll find, the comments about how they could do it better. If you are one of those haters, then please write a better book, and I don’t say that with (very much) sarcasm. I know someone else could do this book in a better way but guess what – I got it done. The landscape is wide open for more books, so stop talking and start writing.

Publishing a textbook is very different from a novel, but the writing process can be similar. Find that topic, dedicate time, and let those fingers fly all over the keyboard. And in case you didn’t get it, here again is the link to purchase the book.

I Pledge My Heart

I have been involved in 4-H all my life. Seriously! My investment started in this organization started when I was a baby in Fairview, Oklahoma. My mom was the Major County Cooperative Extension agent in the mid 1970s. A group of county agents got together to throw a baby shower when Mom was pregnant with me. She sometimes took me 4-H or Extension Homemakers meetings she would attend as part of her job.

Later, mom taught home economics (that’s what it was called then, so don’t nag me for using an old term), and by default, she was the Carmen-Dacoma 4-H Club Leader. I thought those big kids were so cool in their Kelly-green t-shirts with giant four leaf clovers on them, and I longed for the day I could join too and show a lamb.

In the summer of 1985, we started with our first flock of show lambs. We aren’t very creative, so the lambs were named for the people that raised them: Joe (Hise), Les (McNalley), and Pete (Ward). I loved my lambs, except Pete. Pete was dumb and mean, and he dragged me through a sticker patch. As much as I loved that first group of lambs, I fell in love with all the other activities in 4-H.

I cooked, I sewed, I played the piano, I sang, I gave a speech. Mom had to fight me on doing that first speech – I didn’t want to get up in front of people and have them laugh at me. But moms know what they’re doing, and after I got through the first fears of public speaking, it got easier every time. As a club, we contributed to the community – we sang at the nursing home, built floats for the parade, and we painted the town fire hydrants (Dad had a pickup that still had globs of red paint all over it when he traded it in years later). I quickly realized the sheep were a lot of work, and pigs were so much easier, so my lamb project morphed into pigs. Through all of it, this program was molding me into a confident public speaker, a seamstress, a cook, a show jock, and a friend.

There were so many “big kids” that I looked up to: Tiara and Tiffany Leslie, Jan Webster, Tonya Lemmon, and several others in Woods County. One of the older members in our county went on the Citizenship Washington Focus trip, and as she told me about that trip, I knew I had to go as soon as I was old enough. There was a problem when I became eligible to go, though – no one in Woods County wanted to go with me. But I wanted to see our nation’s capitol so badly, I put on my brave face and signed up for the 1992 trip without knowing anyone that was going.

At 4-H Roundup that year, a few weeks before the DC trip, I was in an etiquette workshop. The presenter asked, “Is anyone going on the 4-H trip to Washington?” A pretty blonde girl raised her hand, we smiled and waved at each other. At the end of the workshop, she came up to me with the thickest southern accent I think I have ever heard and said, “Hi, I’m Cara Bigger. I’m from Marshall County. I’m glad we got to meet before we go on the trip .”

I was so relieved when I loaded that bus to Washington, and there was Cara. It was almost a Forrest and Jenny moment (You can sit here if you want). I immediately latched on to her, and the rest is history. My 4-H friend quickly became one of my best friends. Also on that bus was an energetic, magnetic boy who became best friends with everyone on the bus. Enter Shannon Ferrell, Roger Mills County.

That trip and Bus #2 changed my life. I made fast friends and learned about so many other opportunities through this great organization. I quickly decided I wanted to be a state record book winner and go to National 4-H Congress in Chicago, we learned about scholarships, and various college opportunities. Nearly everyone on the bus said they wanted to go to Oklahoma State. Decision made: I was going to OSU, too. As it turned out, a lot of people on that trip actually did enroll at OSU.

Cara and I remained besties, we were state winners and went to Chicago together, then we were roomies our freshman year at OSU. We stayed friends, Cara married Shannon Ferrell from Roger Mills County, and our boys are a year apart in school.

Both of us are a testament for the power of 4-H. The program instills so many essential skills – public speaking, confidence, responsibility, writing, critical thinking, and above all, friendship. I attribute Oklahoma 4-H for many of the successes I have been fortunate to have today.

For My Community

When my son was about to turn eight, I began the search for a 4-H club for him to join. There wasn’t a club in the Lubbock school district. I could have taken him to one of the other clubs in the county, but I didn’t really want to drive that far. Something nagged at me to create a club, but I didn’t feel like I had the time. I texted Cara and told her to talk me out of creating a 4-H club. With 20 seconds my phone was ringing.

“You need to do this,” Cara said, more firmly than I have ever heard her speak before, and her accent has since waned.

“No way. I don’t have time for this. I probably should, I just don’t want to,” I whined.

“No, you do this. Nobody has time. But people our age don’t have time for anything, and this is a problem in our Sunday schools, scouts, and especially 4-H. You don’t have time to do it, but if you don’t make the time, nobody else is going to do it. Step up and do it,” she said.

Dang! But those were the words of support I needed to move forward and create a club. I had such a great experience in 4-H, it developed me far more than any other activity I did, so I insist my son participate. Again, the essential skills and the friends that a kid makes in this program are so important.

These skills lead to jobs. And if you’re really good, they can lead to a job that helps get other people find a job. That’s what happened for Cara. She was the assistant director of career services at OSU for several years before she had her little boy. She’s an expert in job and internship readiness, which is why I chose her to kick off Season 2 of my podcast, “So You Talk to Cows.” Cara shares her expertise in getting a job or internship, then being a good employee once someone gets that job. Have a listen. She provides excellent wisdom and advice.

And yes, Cara does talk to cows daily. Her son is now showing Hereford cattle, just like she did. Fun fact – Cara was the Oklahoma Hereford Queen in the mid 1990s.

Follow her lead, y’all. Share your expertise. Create opportunities for your child and other kiddos. Help others succeed. Make the best better.🍀

For probably the third time in the 20 years that I have been married to a Swisher County boy, I saw rain in Tule Creek. Tule Creek, usually dry, has three forks, the Upper, Middle, and Lower Tule. The three finally merge together roughly five miles east of Tulia. This is the watershed that eventually feeds into Lake Mackenzie, which has been extremely low for the past few summers because of prolonged drought. The Texas Panhandle has a reputation for being a dry and brown place, but this year has proven us wrong. Just look at this photo! This is Tule Creek, bursting at the bank, rushing to Lake Mackenzie.

A year ago, the region was in extreme drought, and we cringed at the never-ending cracks in the ground as La Nina had a choke hold on the area. We prayed and prayed for rain all of last summer.

God answered this spring in a big way.

This has been one of the rainiest springs I can remember. The lakes across the area are full, the ground is saturated, and now we wait to plant sorghum and harvest wheat. The Panhandle is flat, really flat, but the landscape is dotted with what we call playa lakes. They’re indentations in the ground that collect water. Right now, they are way out of their banks,. A really cool phenomenon happens when the playa lakes fill – the frogs come out. And boy, were they talking. Check out this video of the frog song I captured. If you see me jerk the camera it’s because I was swatting mosquitos.

The landscape has awakened and it is bursting with color this spring. With the rain, though, we sometimes get hail. A lot of Scott’s wheat has hail damage. It’s so disheartening to work for months to grow a crop, only to see it get thrashed, and of course, the worst damage is on his best field. To be clear, this didn’t happen to all his wheat. His fields are spread over several miles, so some of the fields are fine.The pictures below show pitiful heads and grain on the ground. More rain and severe weather are in the forecast for the weekend. We’ll take the rain without complaints, but we can do without any more hail.

Did you meet someone in your career and walk away thinking “that person was really nice.” I remember meeting Tom Brand at the National Association of Farm Broadcasters (that’s what it was called then) convention in 1996. My old boss, Rob McClendon, introduced me to him. A few days later, he won the organization’s Horizon Award – the NAFB version of Rookie of the Year or Best New Artist. Tom Brand has crushed it as a broadcaster, now as the director of the organization, ever since And he’s still really nice.

National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) is a professional organization for professionals working in agricultural broadcasting as well as those working in marketing, advertising, and public relations. It’s a great group that has evolved and worked to create opportunities for leadership and professional development and fosters technological change.

Agricultural radio is as ingrained in our society as the radio itself. It is a vital source of information for our nation’s farmers and ranchers, and it will continue to be so for years to come. Like agricultural technology, broadcast technology will evolve, but as long as farmers and ranchers drive tractors and pickups, there will be a critical need for agricultural broadcasting.

We delve deeper into to this in my interview with Tom Brand.

I used to tease Clinton Griffiths that he followed in my footsteps. I graduated from Oklahoma State in 1998, he graduated four years later. We both interned for SUNUP, a television show produced by Oklahoma Cooperative Extension, when we were OSU ag comm students. I worked in local news, Clinton worked in local news. I worked for AgDay, then Clinton went to work for AgDay. That’s when our career paths split and his took on an astronomical trajectory. Clinton reached agricultural superstardom as the anchor of AgDay Television, and now he’s the editor of Farm Journal. He’s an outstanding reporter, all around great agricultural communicator, and a good human.

Clinton is the editor of Farm Journal. It’s the oldest agricultural publication in the United States, first published in 1877 in Philadelphia. Over the years, Farm Journal has expanded into a media group that encompasses several brands that many people in agriculture know: AgDay Television, US Farm Report, AgriTalk, ProFarmer, AgWeb, Drovers, and more. As our old boss, Brian Conrady, put it, Farm Journal is the ESPN of agriculture. And it’s true. Farm Journal owns magazines, television shows, radio shows, websites, and more. It’s truly amazing this company has withstood through all the changes in publishing technology as well as agricultural technology.

In this podcast, Clinton spends a lot of time discussing interviewing, and describes it as one of the skills a communicator should develop to be more effective. Preparation, developing effective questions, and learning to keep the interview short are all things that should always be remembered, but they’re also skills that come with time and practice.

Clinton and Farm Journal are both available online and through social media.

Farm Journal online. The company has a GREAT YouTube channel: @FarmJournal
AgWeb, the parent site for all the Farm Journal companies. AgWeb is also on Facebook, Insta & Twitter: @agwebeditor,
AgDay, where you can find Clinton every morning.

Clinton is searchable on LinkedIn, Twitter: @ClintonReports, and Insta: @clinton_griffiths

Here’s the link to the podcast in Spotify:

Every now and then, a student comes along and you know they are dripping with talent. Emily McCartney was one of those. I remember Emily in her first year as an agricultural communications student at Texas Tech. Sweet, mature, driven, prepared – everything I wanted in a student. And then I saw her photos. She had “it.”

In her first year, she signed up to go to Belize on my study abroad trip. We had so much fun: a group of 14 students (plus Scott) traveling through the tropical country to see bananas, spices, shrimp, Maya ruins, caves, monkeys, rivers, and of course, the beach. Any time we saw something we wanted good photos of, we handed Emily the camera. Even then – on a trip with a group of college students in a place that had plenty of opportunity to go wild – she showed immense maturity and poise, and she was so precious to be around.

As she moved through Texas Tech, at one point, I asked her what she was planning to do after graduation. “Photography,” she said, so sure of herself. A lot of students tell me they really like photography or they might be interested in it as a career, but there are only a few that tell me they want to go into photography and I know they’ll make it. I had no doubt Emily would crush it. Since graduation her career has exponentially grown, yet she is always willing to speak to students, be interviewed for brand new podcast experiments, and she was even on the cover of our department’s magazine, the Agriculturist.

As you’ll hear in the podcast, Emily got her start in the 4-H photography contest. As a 4-H leader and mom, I love hearing success stories like this. The 4-H contest is a relatively inexpensive contest and a great way to get your kiddo plugged into 4-H. Find more here.

A few of the big takeaways in this podcast episode: you don’t have to have all the gear to be a great photographer, use the light that’s there rather than trying to set up a bunch of lights, and straighten crooked horizons, it’s a simple fix with basic editing software. Emily mentioned VSCO as her fave social media platform. I’m ashamed I didn’t know about it before, but as I was looking up the link, I somehow lost 30 minutes. Be prepared to spend hours looking at great photos.

Emily is easy to find:
Website
Facebook
Insta: @roadrunnergallery and @e_mccart

Here’s the link to the episode. I’m still having trouble embedding. But I’m on Spotify and Amazon Music now! (Waiting on Apple Podcasts).

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3c70b280-b9d1-4b47-9ac9-a3b436b0c337/episodes/ed4b248e-3c1a-41de-9b34-ed8d2715eac2/so-you-talk-to-cows-a-podcast-for-agricultural-communicators-emily-mccartney

Ugh! That question makes me cringe! I am a professor of agricultural communications, I majored in ag communications, I love ag comm, and so I very proudly tell people about my industry. But so many times, when I tell people what I teach, I get asked the question that makes every agricultural communicator grind their teeth, roll their eyes, and heavy sigh: So, do you talk to cows? (Followed by dumb laughter, as if they are the first person to come up with this joke.)

If someone is from the Midwest, they’ll ask if I talk to corn. Occasionally, a clever individual will ask me if I teach cows to talk – that one makes me chuckle a tiny bit. It’s such a joke amongst agricultural communicators that my coworkers and students made a fun video about for April Fool’s Day in 2016. See the end of this post for the video. It’s brilliant.

For the spring semester of 2023, I wanted to try a fun and different way to reach my students. I know they don’t like reading, but they do like podcasts, and I like podcasts too. I have wanted to host a podcast for a while now, so the idea to combine a teaching tool with a creative outlet seemed fun. Plus, this was an efficient way to do some occasional broadcasting. I decided to interview some of my favorite a agricultural communicators from across the nation and provide those interviews to my students, then I’ll release them out to everyone else that might want to listen. Plus the podcasts are a way to connect with people that don’t live here in Lubbock and share their stories with my students.

Now, what to name this podcast? I asked everyone I knew for a suggestion and compiled a long list of lameness. Then, my husband’s former boss, Sally Post, made the joke. “Call it ‘Erica Talks to Cows’.” After I finished rolling my eyes and threatened to kick her out of my house for using the tired joke, I realized she was on to something. Everyone that works in ag comm has heard that, so if I played with the name, the communicators would get it. Sally Post, you’re a genius!

For the early episodes, I’m going to follow the order of my course schedule – print journalism (newspapers, magazines, photos), face to face communications, radio, television, public relations, then as I get into the summer, I’ll have less of an order. I love talking to and learning from others, and I want my students to learn from as many professionals as possible. So if you want to be on the show, send me an email and we’ll set something up!

My first guest is someone that I met very early in my career, and she has always been so helpful and just nice to everyone. Shelley Huguley is the editor of Southwest Farm Press, an agricultural newspaper that serves Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Shelley is an excellent writer and editor and has always been so helpful to us here at Texas Tech. I got acquainted with her when I was a reporter at KLBK and she was the communications director for the Texas Forest Service in the Lubbock region. She always had great story ideas and was extremely friendly. She shares some of her ideas about writing and photography in this podcast episode.

Southwest Farm Press is a top notch publication: one of the best. They serve the readership well and connect to other publications owned by Farm Progress. I have tremendous respect for this publication and the writers they employ. Take a look at the website that I linked. They have done a great job of embracing multiple platforms of ag journalism. Also, find them on Twitter: @farmpress

Here’s the podcast. I can’t get the player to embed into WordPress and welcome any suggestions on how to fix it. And yes, I googled how to do it.

And now the super fabulous talking to cows video: