OFI 1994: A Fascination With The Cattle Industry | FFA SAE Edition | Cash Lehrman | Bridgewater-Emery High School FFA

Cash Lehrman is the Chapter President of the Bridgewater-Emery FFA in Emery, South Dakota.  He is also a cattle rancher on his family's first generation operation, and he has his own business clipping cattle for other ranchers in preparation for their performance sales. Cash ranches with his family in Eastern South Dakota, and has been doing so all of his life.  By now, he is well aware of the challenges that come with raising livestock in South Dakota, especially in the Springtime, when they seem to get some late winter storms and lots of precipitation.  His long term, future plans, are to ranch cattle on his families property and continue to grow this business. Cash's short term plans really caught my ear as we spoke.  After he graduates this year, he will be heading to Oklahoma State University to get his degree in animal science.  The natural follow up question is "why Oklahoma State" when you are from South Dakota?  I thought his answer really demonstrated just how much he loves working with cattle. Cash's answer was all about nutrition.  He knows from the reading and research he has done due to his own curiosity that the methods of grazing and feeding cattle in the lower plains is different than that of South Dakota.  He wants to learn how and why ranchers in the Southern Plains graze on winter wheat and then can follow up with a wheat harvest of what was just a forage crop.  It is Cash's natural curiosity about raising cattle and his desire to know more that will take him to Oklahoma, and then who knows where else before he finds himself back on his families ranch.