Blue corduroy as dark as the night sky. Gold as crisp as the growing wheat. Together these colors represent the nation-wide program holding the future of agriculture: FFA, where our students excel in gaining knowledge, friendship and opportunity.

Sophomore Grason Bush has been largely involved in the FFA program since his freshman year, along with being involved locally and nationally in the agriculture community.

“I personally got into it because of my sister,” Bush said. “Seeing her getting involved in it her freshman year and seeing the leadership skills she developed and public speaking skills, and just the connections she was able to make throughout the state. I said to myself, ‘I want to be able to have that.’”

Involvement in FFA allows students who wish to pursue a career in agriculture an insight to different career fields, along with providing them basic and important information that can play a key role in electing officials and voting on large legislative movements for the future.

“I know what I’m going to be starting out with is the farm bill,” Bush said. “It’s this huge piece of legislative material that is really hard to understand. It’s really complex. Most people don’t understand the economic impacts and the regulatory impacts it has on farmers. So, when it comes time to elect your officials, you need to be knowing how that’s going to affect the agriculture industry.”

His inspiration for his work evolves from his involvement in two internships, My Day in Texas Ag and Blue Corduroy Nation. My Day in Texas Ag is a statewide organization, allowing people to know the process from farm to table.

“We’re kind of bringing in aspects of agricultural transparency, making sure the consumer knows what we’re doing so they’re not in the dark anymore,” Bush said. “I take on the role of interviewing businesses and professionals and taking on current agricultural topics. I’m  tasked with showing people the unconventional sides of agriculture.”

His second internship with Blue Corduroy Nation is a national organization. The purpose of this association is to spread the different aspects of agriculture to different areas across the country.

“They’re trying to involve kids who are looking to go into the agricultural communications and media fields, and who are just generally passionate about agriculture, and really enjoy doing it,” Bush said. “They want to be able to connect FFA members across the nation. They want to make it more interactive for the members.”

Bush said his involvement with the FFA program launched his success for these positions.

“They chose me because I was interviewed by them for their first article, a video montage of what FFA is,” Bush said. “They chose me based off what I said in that interview and how passionate I was about agriculture.”

Bush is directing the majority of his studies to the development of agriculture throughout the schools and for younger children, as well as combining the ideas of My Day in Texas Ag and Blue Corduroy nation.

“It’s a purpose I can really get behind,” Bush said. “Everybody has something they do well and something they enjoy, and for me it’s ag. I’m kind of thinking I’m going to do something called the agricultural literacy project.”

Among his extracurricular involvement in agriculture, Bush received the January Student of the Month award for the sophomore class.

“It’s an honor to be able to be recognized by the school as a student that is meeting a certain level of qualifications I would say are a little bit above average than most,” Bush said.

Students are selected by their teachers and then voted on by a select group of their peers for the nomination. Bush said he tries to live by the golden rule, and thinks the action of treating people fairly allowed him to receive the nomination.  

“I’ve been through some hard times,” Bush said. “I see those people going through hard times, and I want to be able to be there for them when nobody was there for me.”