May is the time of graduations, and graduations are an annual event where the old feel free to give unsolicited advice to the young.  Generally we select the advice we have never taken ourselves.  If we are unaware of this fact, the young are free to look at us and judge us hypocrites. If we are aware of it, however, then may the young look at us and realize we see in them a chance to get it right in the ways we haven’t been able to yet.

May is also Beef Month, and cattle producers celebrate it in the coming of green grass, the growth of this year’s calf crop, and the onset of breeding season.  They hope you celebrate it with the grill on the deck. For the Madison County Cattlemen, however, we are blessed with something more.  We get to celebrate the Madison County Youth Beef Team.

The team has been headed for many years by John LaFratte and his wife Shirley.  As an association we try to help cover expenses, but the vast majority of the expenses are covered by John and Shirley themselves.  The two have an ice cream stand at the county fair, and for most it would turn a good profit.  John and Shirley use it as an engine to propel the county’s youth, either through the purchase of trophies that help to fund local scholarships, their support of the 4-H auction at the fair’s conclusion, or their monthly commitment to the Youth Beef Team.

The team itself boasts 30 youth, which spend time learning about cattle, how they are raised, all things beef, communication and presentation skills, and how to advocate for it all.  Somewhere in the process, the youth also learn about becoming adults.  I suspect they don’t learn about it via John and Shirley’s advice, rather it is by their example.

At Tuesday’s cattlemen’s meeting over 20 directors got a chance to see a small part of what that looks like.  John and four of the youth joined us and gave the same presentation they had recently given to over 270 fifth grade students from around the county.  You might be able to go a day without eating beef, but you cannot go a day without benefiting from it and those who raise it.

In the midst of it all, it was hard not to think about what the future might hold, as the youth from years ago are now returning and putting the skills which John and Shirley worked to give them to use.  May tomorrow’s promise become today’s realization.  They have a much better chance of getting it right.