Karina Jones is a real-life ranch wife in the Nebraska Sandhills and one of the most highly sought-after speakers in the cattle industry nationwide!
Tis the season….county fair season! Thanks for joining me today on Ranch Raised.
There has been a lot of county fair posts circulating on social media. Some of them I enjoy and others I scroll by. But then there was one that I saw recently that really hit home. It was originally posted by S2 Photography and I wanted to share it.
“Is it about winning?
Recently I have been hearing a lot of people say, “this isn’t about winning.” I would love to tell you that’s the truth. But it isn’t.
Now it’s not about the banners, the buckles, the money. Those all fade and tarnish with time. It’s about learning how to win. It’s about gaining a drive and want to win.
Too often, kids are taught that it’s okay if they don’t win. So then why even try to win? But in the real world, why would the goal ever be second place?
Learning how to win, means knowing how to be a gracious loser. It means knowing how to be humble when you’re at the top, and dig your way up from the bottom. It means working harder than your competitors. Day in and day out.
Being a winner means taking responsibility, having drive, and a good work ethic. It means to be better than you were the day before. The winner isn’t always the person in 1st place.
I think the world needs a whole lot more winners. We need to raise a generation of initiative takers, hard workers, and believers. Because I know if there’s a way to mold young people into winners in all walks of life, it’s in and around a show ring.
So let’s start pushing kids to be winners. Not so they can have the most awards, but to create a world of champions that will stop at nothing short of success.”
Why are kids expected to spend a couple hours a day in a gym to be make their sports team successful but spending a couple of a hours a day in the barn in order to put in the work it takes to win somehow makes them different, and I don’t mean that in an enduring way.
Karina ranches with her husband, Marty, and 4 children near Broken Bow, NE. She grew up in western NE, with roots also in southwest SD. The cattle industry and raising kids is her passion.
Watching the cattle industry go the path that it has gone, she could no longer sit quietly at home checking cows, fixing fence, and doing all the everyday tasks wondering when some else was going to make it all better. As she became more active and outspoken on industry issues, she was asked to join the R-CALF USA staff in September 2020 as the Checkoff Petition Campaign manager. That position transcended into her current role as full time Field Director for R-CALF USA.
You can hear her almost every Friday on Your Ag Network’s Hot Barn Report, where she deep dives into cattle industry issues and industry reforms. Listen to Ranch Raised on a Your Ag Network hometown station or www.youragnetwork.com where she talks about her daily life on the Jones Ranch.
Cattle producers are her people. She will meet you at the county fair, at the sale barn, or anywhere the dusty trail leads.
karina@youragnetwork.com or visit facebook.com/ranchraisedwithkarinajones
Follow Karina Jones on Facebook!
