Sistrunk Leverages Love of Talk into Discussion Meet Win

Katie Sistrunk (center) receives the key to a John Deere 4x2 Gator utility vehicle as the winner of the 2016 Louisiana Farm Bureau Young Farmers & Ranchers Discussion Meet.

by Rachelle Broussard, La. Farm Service Agency
for the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation

Katie Sistrunk of Iberville Parish loves to talk and blames it all on her dad.  

That love to talk helped Sistrunk win the Young Farmers and Ranchers Discussion Meet at the 94th Annual Louisiana Farm Bureau Convention in New Orleans.  She said she was excited to hear that the final discussion topic would be about Foreign Farm Labor as she deals her on farm labor on a daily basis.

Sistrunk is a fourth-generation sugarcane farmer and works with her dad and three brothers on their 1,500-acre sugarcane farm.  She does everything from bookkeeping, running errands and taking care of the necessary paperwork needed for her farm's labor.  Sistrunk also assists fellow farmers that need help setting up their bookkeeping systems to make their businesses run more efficiently.

Sistrunk has been attending the Farm Bureau Convention since she was a girl and now serves on many Farm Bureau committees.  She competed against three other contestants in the final Discussion Meet.  In January 2017, she will be representing Louisiana at the annual American Farm Bureau convention in Phoenix, Az. to compete in the national Discussion Meet. Sistrunk said she will start practicing by doing what she loves best--talking and working on the farm, to prepare for the national competition.