As We Mingle with Others ...

Welcome back to another captivating episode of the Growing Our Future podcast, hosted by the insightful Aaron Alejandro. Today, Aaron sits down with a true luminary in the field of agricultural education, Dr. Gary Moore, a passionate historian and educator whose impact has been felt across generations.

In this episode, Aaron and Dr. Moore delve deep into the roots of agricultural education, exploring the very essence of what makes this field unique. Dr. Moore, a distinguished figure in the agricultural education landscape, sheds light on the core principles that set this discipline apart from others in the educational realm.

Agricultural education, as Dr. Moore explains, stands out due to its emphasis on relevance and application. Unlike traditional education where students might simply turn in assignments, agricultural education takes knowledge a step further by encouraging hands-on learning and practical applications. Dr. Moore vividly describes how agricultural education and its associated programs, such as FFA, teach students not just to memorize facts, but to understand and apply them in real-world scenarios.

Story Notes:

• Planting the Seeds of Greatness
• Gratitude and Passion for Teaching
• Lifelong Learning and Teaching
• Uncovering Hidden Histories
• Lessons from the Past
• The Unique Aspects of Agricultural Education
• Inspiring the Next Generation

Learn More at:

https://mytexasffa.org/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast. In this show, the Texas FFA Foundation will take on a journey of exploration into agricultural science, education, leadership development and insights from subject matter experts and sponsors who provide the fuel to make dreams come true. Here is your host, Erin Alejandro.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Well, good morning, good afternoon or good evening or whenever you may be tuning in to the Growing Our Future podcast, it's another great episode with another great guest. You know we're always saying if you want to know what the future is, grow it. Well, what's it take to grow something? Well, you've got to plant the right seeds. And that's what this podcast is all about. It's bringing people on that are subject matter experts, people that are willing to share their experiences inside expertise, but basically just plant seeds of greatness in somebody else, and today is no exception. We have a great historian I just love the history that he brings in the perspective and preserving the history of ag education and FFA in the United States and that is Dr Gary Moore. Dr Moore, thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 3: 1:21

It's my pleasure.

Speaker 2: 1:23

And you make your way all around the country, so I know that I hope that you're not on the road. I hope we caught you at a good time, and we always wish you the best, the safest travels, because the work that you're doing is important. Well, thank you. Okay, dr Moore, I start off all of these podcasts with the same question, and that is this what are you grateful for today?

Speaker 3: 1:54

Well, I would say I'm grateful for two things. Number one is my health. I'm 75 years old and I'm still active and get out and do things. We had a big Halloween haunted forest in my nature area, so I'm thankful that I am healthy. And the second is I am thankful that I can still teach people.

Speaker 3: 2:20

I love teaching and I was a high school ag teacher and a university professor for 47 years and then I retired in 2017. But I retired from the university, not from the profession of agricultural education, so I still get to teach people. Next night I was speaking the Zoom to a graduate class at LSU. Tomorrow I will be speaking to a group at North Carolina State called the Rule Engaged Agricultural Leaders. That acronym is real and this is for undergraduate students so they can go back to their home communities and be leaders, and I will be teaching them about land grant colleges. And Monday I'm speaking to a retired group at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on Rosenwald Schools. So I am grateful that I still have the opportunity to interact with people and to share my knowledge and to teach. I just love teaching, so that's what I'm grateful for.

Speaker 2: 3:29

Well, thank you for doing that. By the way, you know, if you really look at all professions, not everybody's called for everything. People have bents, they have skill sets and they have passion, and it sounds like you found something that you're very passionate about. Sounds like you found something that has made you a lifelong learner as well as a lifelong teacher. Would that be fair?

Speaker 3: 3:56

Oh yes, now I stay busy doing research and writing and I have learned more and more and more, and there's a whole lot more I'm still yet to learn. So I really enjoy learning and teaching.

Speaker 2: 4:12

We're going to dive into that a little bit here. I want to tell one quick story. So I was doing a podcast interview with Chancellor Kent Hance and Kent Hance used to be the chancellor at Texas Tech University and the chancellor was telling me about growing up in Demet, texas, and he was there when they desegregated and they put a young man in his class named Junior Coffee and he and Junior Coffee became best friends. Junior was quite an athlete. He wanted to play ball. Southwest Conference had not desegregated yet so there was not an opportunity to play football in the Southwest Conference. So we ended up going to Washington State, the state of Washington, and played for the University of Washington, was later drafted by the Green Bay Packers and played on the championship Green Bay Packer Super Bowl team.

Speaker 2: 4:59

And I was trying to find some information about Junior Coffee and I happened to call Dr Gary Moore and it was not. Two hours after our phone call I get an email from Dr Moore and here's a photograph. Looks like it came out of a Demet year high school yearbook and sure enough, it said Demet FFA and there is Kent Hance and Junior Coffee in that photograph. And so I got to tell you your sleuthing skills. Your investigative skills are very good, by the way. Dr Moore, thank you.

Speaker 2: 5:34

That was impressive and you know, and because of that I did a. I sent out an email to teachers and put it on social media in a 24 hour period just to see how many former members that we could find that are in professional sports. And it was fascinating to see how many people wore that blue and gold jacket that have gone on to professional careers in a variety of sports. So I'll have to share that with you because I know that that would be something that you would enjoy seeing. I would. So, all right, you kind of alluded to your career, but I want to go a little bit deeper into that because you're very passionate about sharing your knowledge, your history, the experiences that you had. But life had to have happened for you to have all that. You didn't just fall into your lap. So take us back in time and kind of walk us through kind of how you came out of your high school career, how you went into your college career and how your path led you into academics and into the education world.

Speaker 3: 6:47

I will be glad to do so. I grew up in Central Texas Hill Country and when I was 20 months old my mother and father were divorced and that left my mother with four boys to raise Wow, 12 years old, 10 years old, 20 months old and nine weeks old. And we were very poor. But everybody around us was poor also, so we didn't really realize anything. And all through my elementary and middle school I was a good kid. I didn't cause problems, but I was sort of an invisible student and I didn't do anything that really stood out or anything that would cause me trouble. But yet when I enrolled in high school, I enrolled in Boag 1 at Lampasses, texas High School, and the ag teacher held up a green hand pen. A little tiny green hand pen said if you memorize the creed, you'll get this. And so I memorized the creed and man, that was so exciting, cause I got something. And then I got an FFA manual and I read it backwards in the Fords. And then there was a FFA quiz contest and the ag teacher wanted me to get involved in that. So I did. So I finally found a niche in life and that was in agricultural education and FFA, and then later on I became the chapter president and so that sort of got me started. And one year when I was a junior in high school, I was sitting in a deer stand trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life and then I said you know, I think I want to be a high school ag teacher, cause my high school ag teacher made a major difference in my life. He basically changed my life, and that happens to thousands and thousands of times across the country. And so I went to Tarleton State College there was a college then, not a university and got a degree in agricultural education. And then, because I was young and single, I wanted to see the world. So I applied for jobs, primarily in the West, and I took a teaching job in Medicine Lodge, kansas. And I enjoyed teaching high school ag in Medicine Lodge, kansas.

Speaker 3: 9:15

But while I was in high school or college my parents, my mother and brothers had all moved to Ohio, so they recruited me to come to Ohio. So I went to Ohio and taught high school agriculture in Ohio for three years and then one night in a graduate class the professor said I want to see you after class is over. I'm in trouble now. The professor was Ralph Bender, who was department head at Ohio State, and this was a graduate course where the professor would come out and teach in your local community. So he said, gary, I need you to come to Ohio State, work on a doctorate and teach our introduction to ag ed course. So I was honored and pleased and I said, okay, I'll do that. So then I went to Ohio State, was a graduate student for two years, taught the introduction to ag ed course, and then I graduated.

Speaker 3: 10:13

Right before I went to Ohio State I got married to the homec teacher in a local high school and she got a doctorate at Ohio State in home economics education. Mine was in ag education. So then we started a professional career of teaching college that lasted for over 40 years. I first went to Alabama A&M. My wife and I wanted to be on the same faculty and they had a job for both of us. I was there for one year at a historically black college, so that was a good experience. Then I went to Purdue University for six years but it was too cold in Indiana for me. Then I moved to LSU and she and I were on the faculty there and we liked LSU but it was too hot down there. So then, when North Carolina State was looking for a department head, I moved to North Carolina State and I've been here. So I spent over 40 years being a university professor of agricultural education, after having taught for four years. So that's sort of my life story.

Speaker 2: 11:24

Okay, so I wanna just stay on your life story a little bit, Tell us a little bit about and I'm gonna come back. By the way, we're gonna dive back into the education side of things, but I think that a lot of people know you now is the Friday Footnotes guy. Everybody knows you as kind of this FFA Ag Education Historian. How did you get involved in that? What was it that made you wanna kind of make that a niche, that you kind of served in that capacity?

Speaker 3: 11:55

Well, that's a good question. When I was at Ohio State I really got involved in doing research and most of my research was on teaching effectiveness and what makes an effective teacher. And I got to studying what the teachers do that make them effective. And then I said, well, where'd that come from? And I started tracing what I would call the family tree of teaching and the family tree of pedagogy backwards. So that sort of got me a little interested.

Speaker 3: 12:28

But then when I went to LSU, the person that I replaced taught a course on the history of agricultural education. So, being the new kid on the block, they assigned me that responsibility and I had never really done any historical research, it was all experimental research. And so I started delving into the history of AgEd and reading and figuring out what to teach and how to teach. The more I did it, the more excited I got and it just sort of grew like a mushroom from there. So it was trying to figure out why we do what we do in AgEd and then having to teach the history of AgEd. So that's what got me started down the historical path.

Speaker 2: 13:18

Well, I know that you and I recently had a conversation when you were in Texas and I shared with you how much I appreciate what you do. And there's a movie, one of my favorite movies. It's called the Dead Poet Society with Robin Williams, and there's a scene in that movie that I think really speaks to what you just shared. And there's a scene in the movie where he makes all the boys stand in front of a trophy case and look at the old black and white photos of all of the people that went before them and he makes them be real quiet. And the boys are sitting there and they're staring at those old photographs and Robin Williams' character says can you hear him? And then he starts whispering Carpe Diem, carpe Diem sees the day. And he says when you look in those faces, they were once like you, they were full of wonder, they were full of ideas, they were full of what's next. But all we have is those images and if we're lucky we might find some of their words.

Speaker 2: 14:27

And I think the thing that I appreciate about what you do is you help us capture some of those historical moments, but you give us words and you share some of the stories, some of the voices. You know, we're so lucky today to have digital technology where we can video things and we can audio record things and we don't have to go to a studio to do it, and I just think that our capacity for history is gonna be so much better in the future. I just hope that you're coming on this podcast might inspire the next Dr Moore that somebody out there says you know, I never really thought about that, about being that person that goes back and asks that question why did they do this? What happened at this point in time that they thought this was a good idea, and so I hope you know that what you're doing is not only valued, it's also inspirational.

Speaker 3: 15:35

Well, I hope so. That would be a wonderful legacy to leave behind. I've done some research on the family tree and agricultural education. Who influenced who? Who influenced that person? And it's just marvelous to look to see how we have evolved and grown and who has had an impact on what we do. So it would be nice to know you had an impact on something.

Speaker 2: 16:03

Well, one of my board members is the son of the late Zig Ziglar. So Tom Ziggler is on the foundation board and I like what Tom says. He said we're all going to leave a legacy. Everybody's going to leave a legacy. You're either going to leave it by design or by default. So I would tell you that I think you're doing it by design and, again, you're willing this to come on. This podcast is just another opportunity. It's just another opportunity for us to create a platform to maybe inspire that next historian.

Speaker 2: 16:39

You know, one of the things that I think I shared with you in Texas is, you know, growing up at Boys Ranch. I remember that my mom, when I was taken to Boys Ranch a man by the name of Cy Young not the baseball player, but a guy by the name of Cy Young, he was a deacon in my church and he was my middle school PE teacher and he dropped me off at Boys Ranch Well, obviously, I got my life together. Ffa changed everything in my life. I went to work for a member of Congress and I remember getting a phone call from from Cy one day and he said Aaron, I need your help. I said what are you doing? He goes, I'm putting together a little military reunion group and I need somebody to facilitate our press conferences. And I said OK. I said, cy, what group are you putting together? And he said I'm putting together the Iwo Jima survivors group. And little did I know. My PE teacher and my deacon in my church was a survivor of the battle of Iwo Jima. So we put this survivors group together and for four years I had the opportunity to facilitate the press conferences. We had the remaining crew members of the Enola Gay, general Paul Tibbets and the remaining crew members of the Enola Gay. We had the remaining Medal of Honor recipients from the battle of Iwo Jima. We had the survivors of the USS Indianapolis.

Speaker 2: 18:04

But I share all that. To share this story, one day in one of the press conferences one of the reporters asked General Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay, how are you doing with your alcoholism? I understand that after you dropped the bomb on Hiroshima that you were devastated because of the destruction and you turned to alcohol and I'll never forget that room that day and it got real quiet and General Tibbets was such a man of character, he never got riled up or anything, he just looked at her and he said man, I've heard about people like you, but I've never met one. You are what we call revisionist and you want to revise history to fit a narrative that you want it to fit to fit. And then General Tibbets goes into detail about the order from the president, the training that he went through in the day that he dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. He recognized the devastation, but he also recognized the significance in ending the war and bringing people home that were encamped in prisons.

Speaker 2: 19:14

I've always said that the easiest way to revise history is to not know it. And if it were not for people like Dr Moore and people who are willing to take up that task of history, we could have people that could buffalo us, people that could take us down a path that's not accurate to how we got to where we're at. So I shared that story, not to detract from what Dr Moore does, but to share why I have such great admiration for what he does. Because it is in capturing that history and sharing that history that those who are willing to read it have a better grasp on where we've been, which can hopefully influence where we can possibly go. Is that a fair reflection on looking at history, dr Moore?

Speaker 3: 20:11

Definitely. Recently in the Friday footnotes we talked about the founders of the FFA. Henry Grosskloß gets all the credit for it, but there was a guy named Walter Newman who came up with the idea and was a prophet and he sold the idea and Grosskloß just happened to be assigned the responsibility of developing the material. And people really didn't know that, or they don't know that. And when I was doing research for that piece of the Friday footnote, sometimes I'll look at Wikipedia and see what they say and on Wikipedia there was a quote that was attributed to Henry Grosskloß that he did not make. Walter Newman made the quote and I have found several misinformation on Wikipedia and other places where people attribute something to somebody when it was really somebody else. So, yeah, I think we need to study history to separate fact from fiction.

Speaker 2: 21:28

Well. So our challenge has gotten even more. It's even gotten greater in recent years. I tell people I remember when I started 22 years ago, the average attention span of a CEO was eight seconds. Today, I've been told that that same attention span is about four seconds, and it's because technology and transfer of information moves so quickly that we can do multiple things and we can take in different things at one time.

Speaker 2: 22:00

But I think it's important that we pause when we look at how we got to where we're at. I think it's important that we pause and, number one, look down and say whose shoulders am I standing on? Because I'm standing on somebody's shoulders to be where I'm at right now. But then, to your point, who really had the idea to put all the people in place for me to stand on these shoulders?

Speaker 2: 22:30

But I think the real challenge and this is one that I like to take on and that is how do we inspire that next generation to say, okay, well, these programs were great, Alejandro, you did this, you did this and you did this. But you know what? I think we're going to do something even better, Because to me, I think that's the essence of leadership. We like to say that the essence of leadership is to plant trees under whose shade you may never sit, and when we think of Newman and all those great founding fathers, if you will, we're sitting under some very mighty oaks, by the way that they planted, and there's a lot of kids, a lot of kids out there that are sitting under oaks that you planted, and I think that is the essence of leadership, and I do appreciate the fact that FFA creates a vehicle for us to encourage and empower those kids with the skills to do that. Would you agree?

Speaker 3: 23:33

Oh yeah, now that's important to know that. Last night, when I was speaking to the LSU graduate students, one of the students was doing a research project on the admission of females girls to the FFA in 1969. So she asked me a question about it. She said well, I've had people in Texas claim to have been the deciding voice. I've had people in Virginia claim to be the deciding voice. You hear a lot of different stories and we need to figure out exactly who's telling the truth. Well, being an FFA, we sort of learn some of those techniques.

Speaker 2: 24:22

Well, let me tell you, I tell you, and I know you know this you need to talk to Bill Sarpolis and I can arrange that meeting. Bill Sarpolis and I had to dig on him a little bit to get this out, by the way. So I had heard that Bill made the motion to allow girls and FFA. I have since learned that that was not the case. But what the case was is that they were working on trying to increase delegate counts and membership and so to get the delegate count up, which obviously would have benefited a large state like Texas. They said if we could get girls in the FFA, that might be a way to increase population and membership and then thus you would have more delegates. But all of that discussion took place in the back room of the delegate body, not on the floor of the convention. So it was not Bill Sarpolis that made the motion on the floor of convention.

Speaker 2: 25:24

I think there's actually minutes. I want to say it was somebody from California is kind of, I think, one of the documents that I had read or heard. But to your point, it's the kind of that Walter Newman behind the scene story that I think is interesting. It's the dialogue that went on as to why they were moving to that. No, it wasn't because we're just going to put girls in the FFA. It's because they were trying to bulk up membership for delegate counts. I hope that's consistent with what you've found, but that's exactly what Sarpolis told me.

Speaker 3: 26:00

Yeah, well, the bottom line with that was that the FFA was under a lot of pressure from the federal government to merge. So that enters into the picture, like whenever the new farmers of America merged with the future farmers of America. There was a convention which had happened in 1965, but it officially happened in July of 1965, the office of civil rights mandated the merger. So there's what's on the surface and what's below the surface for a lot of things.

Speaker 2: 26:45

That's again. That's why I like talking to you, because I'm one of those guys that like to think. You know, I kind of noodle and think it's like Walt Disney. Somebody said that Disney passed away before he ever saw Disney World built and they said we really wished he could have seen it and they said he did. Because that's what visionaries do. Visionaries see what the possibilities are, but I think it's important to have historians that kind of can help us reference that point in time as to why they had that vision.

Speaker 3: 27:20

Right.

Speaker 2: 27:22

Okay, so let me ask you a question. I'm just curious to get your thoughts on this. What do you think it is that makes agricultural education unique compared to its peers in education?

Speaker 3: 27:36

Well, I would say one of the things that makes agricultural education unique is its relevance and application. I read a story once written by an English teacher who says one of my former students, when he stands on his tiptoes, can see outside of the jail cell. He's in and he can see the high school and think of all the great things we've done for him. And this guy was in jail and a lot of people go to school, turn in assignments, that's it. But in agricultural education we stress knowledge, we stress the application of knowledge.

Speaker 3: 28:25

Here at North Carolina State University Our university motto is think and do. That's what FFA does. We think and we do. And also we stress leadership development. If it hadn't been for the influence of FFL me in the high school, no, I might be a butcher in Lang's supermarket in Lampasses, texas. Today. We develop leadership and that is missing out of most academic subjects. You just learn what's in the book. In agricultural and FFA we learn what's in the books and we go out and we apply it. So that's the main difference is the application.

Speaker 2: 29:16

I appreciate you sharing that example, that I get that question a lot when I'm out dealing with sponsors and prospects. A lot of times I'll ask me what's different between FFA and 4-H, and so I get to tell them they're both great youth organizations, just we happen to be part of public education by public law. And I said let me explain it this way. I said I want you to think of FFA and supervised agricultural experiences like this. I said you know, when we went to college back in the day, we'd go to lecture in the morning and then we'd go to lab in the afternoon. I said that's kind of what ag education in the FFA is. We would go to the classroom and our instructor would teach us about agriculture or life sciences or what's going on in the world, and then through this vehicle called FFA, we got to practice.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Well, I read something about beef production Now I'm going to speak on it. I read something about beef production Now I'm going to go raise one. And so I like in what we do to kind of like lecture in the lab. We go to lecture in the morning, we go to lab in the afternoon and I do believe that that, to your point, is what makes our program very unique?

Speaker 3: 30:27

If you wanted to build further on it. You know, when I was in high school agriculture I gained agricultural knowledge, which is good to have and that has served me all throughout my career. At the college level In North Carolina State I was the chairman of our college teaching improvement committee and we do workshops on teaching, but also I was available to coach and consult with teachers. They would invite me into their class, I would observe them and then, no matter what class I watched, watched. If it's a class on beef production or arc welding or plant biology I could carry on a conversation with these professors. Because of my high school ag background, I had a little knowledge in many different areas, so that helped me. Also, when I was in high school I learned all about FFA and I've taught courses on FFA. But the two most important things that I probably learned was record keeping. Now other programs don't teach record keeping. There was a study done at Iowa State many, many years ago on what's the biggest benefit of having a supervised ag experience program and the answer was you learn to keep records and you can use that in any part of life.

Speaker 3: 31:53

When I was in college at Tarleton State, my junior year I got a job at a hotel, sort of a relief clerk in the evening. And after two weeks the owner said I have bad news for you, gary. I've sold out to a national chain. They're going to be here next week so you might not have a job. So when the national chain people showed up, I showed up to work. The manager said well, let me see how things work out. After two or three days he said can I teach you how to be the night auditor and do the records at night? And I said sure, and I caught on just like that, because I'd been taught record keeping in high school.

Speaker 3: 32:33

And when I came back my senior year this was my junior year he said my job would be waiting. I went back. They had a new manager. She said I don't need you. I left her my phone number. In a week she called me. The records were in such bad shape she had to have somebody come in to fill them out and then a month later she had a heart attack and died and I was made the manager of a hotel while I was a senior. In college, because of record keeping, and also in FFA and Haggad, we teach parliamentary procedure and you can use that any place in life. I've had the privilege of being the president of four national societies or organizations professional organizations and the fact that I knew parliamentary procedure certainly didn't hurt at all in serving as president of these four different organizations. So you know, haggad is good, the FFA is good, but some of the things we learn go way beyond the field of agricultural education.

Speaker 2: 33:40

Oh yeah, no question, I agree with you completely. I remember as a freshman at Boys Ranch. You know, number one being put into Ag was a shock because I'm from Dallas and I wasn't in the classroom but a couple of weeks and they were getting ready for leadership development events and they put me on the parliamentary procedure green hand team and I'm the vice president. And then I fast forward in my career to where I'm the district director for a member of Congress and I'm going through a local leadership development program and this are all the business leaders and the who's who in our community and we were doing a session on board training and I'm watching all these who's who fumble around and not know how to run a meeting and I'm thinking I learned more about how to run a meeting as a freshman in high school than you guys are, as business leaders in the community.

Speaker 2: 34:36

So to your point, Dr Moore. As a matter of fact, there's a podcast that's going to be coming out. I don't know if it comes out before yours or not. If not, it'll come out after this one. But I interviewed K Cruz, who is a professional parliamentarian, and it was fascinating to hear the world of parliamentarians and the roles that they can play in government and politics and trade associations. It was very interesting. I asked her what's one of the most interest or one of the most obvious deficiencies of a meeting. You're going to love this. You know what she said the number one thing, that the number one deficiency. She said there's no agenda.

Speaker 3: 35:21

Oh, okay, I thought about. You have a properly state of motion.

Speaker 2: 35:26

No, no agenda. She says you get there and they don't have an agenda. So I believe that is just what's really interesting.

Speaker 3: 35:35

I served as president of the Association for Career and Technical Education and after my term was over they would invite me back every year to do a workshop on parliamentary procedure for the new board members. And here we have recognized experts from the United States and home economics education and business education, and none of them knew how to run a meeting or new basic parliamentary procedure, and that was so much fun. I actually ended up dividing the board into two groups and we had a parliamentary procedure contest just to see if they can make a motion, offer an amendment and handle it.

Speaker 2: 36:16

I believe it and I'm going to tell you. You know, when I worked at CEB multimedia, you know I worked at that company when they first got started and I had seven tapes in their inventory but one of the tapes that I really wanted to do, and I really fought with Gordon Davis to get it done, but we finally got it done as I wanted to do a fundamental par prototype and it became his best seller. Because, to your point it's, we don't have to overwhelm people with too much information, but we do need to give people a structure in which to let our democracy really work. And to me, that's the beauty of parliamentary procedure is it allows democracy to be at its best Right. And so I'm like you, I'm kind of glad that FFA teaches and provides that portal to that leadership skill set.

Speaker 2: 37:08

So, speaking of leadership, obviously you've taught it, you've lived it, you've seen it, you've contributed to it. So I guess my question to you would be this, knowing that we're going to have members, teachers and other stakeholders watching this podcast what are three leadership skills that you've seen, that you've witnessed, that you've used, that can help a person be successful in their life?

Speaker 3: 37:42

Well, you know there's. If you ask 10 different people you'll probably get 10 different answers. But early on in my career I got to looking at what made good leaders and I came up with a model and most people are familiar with. The Maslow's hierarchy of needs Is this this triangle? And there's different levels of needs, from security to acceptance. So I developed Moore's Pyramid of Leadership. Oh, here we go. This is good, yeah. And each level starts with the letter C and as you go up the pyramid there's like eight or nine levels and each level starts with a C. And then I have people when I do workshops try to guess what C words would go into a leadership pyramid and I guess some interesting answers. I guess some really good answers.

Speaker 3: 38:42

But on the very bottom of my leadership pyramid is commitment. You must be committed to an organization. I know a number of people who have sought offices. They're not really committed to the organization. They just want something to put on their resume. And you really have to be committed to the organization. And because agricultural education has done so much for me and sort of gave me the foundation for my life, I am very committed to agricultural education and a lot of things that what I do is to pay back to the organization, so I'm committed to ag education.

Speaker 3: 39:22

The next level in the pyramid is compassion and caring. Every organization is comprised of people and in the way you bring an organization forward is through the people, and you have to have a concern and care for people and if you don't, then you probably aren't going to be a very good leader. So a good leader has compassion and caring. The third level of my pyramid is comprehension, and I learned as a board member and as the president of the Association for Career and Technical Education. Before every board meeting we get a big, thick notebook of actions and information and I began to wonder did the people really read that? Do they understand what we're doing? So I started starting every meeting with a quiz and I had electronic clickers and people would respond and I would ask them questions from the board book and it was amazing how many people had no idea what was in there. So you got to do your homework. A lot of leadership is sort of like the iceberg. A lot of it occurs below the surface. You don't see what's going on. You don't spend hours and hours and hours studying and researching issues so that I fully understand or have comprehension about those.

Speaker 3: 40:53

Then, as we go up the leadership pyramid, the next is communication. You have to communicate with people, let them know what's going on. The worst thing you can do is be in an organization and have no clue as to what's going on. So when I was president of AAAE, I communicated to people. When I was president of ACT, I sent out a news thing every month to all the state leaders and here's what's going on. And it was the first time in the history of ACT that the vice presidents had some clue as to what was going on, because after two or three board meetings that's all they would ever get in the past. So I believe communication is the next level up the pyramid.

Speaker 3: 41:40

And then next is consensus. So whenever it comes time to make decisions, you try to get everybody together, have all agreed, and I think Martin Luther King said consensus is the role of the leader. And so you try to get consensus. Next up my pyramid is consultation. Sometimes you may have to make a decision. Maybe you can't get consensus, but you do want to get everybody's input. Everybody wants to have a voice. So we need consultation.

Speaker 3: 42:14

And then the next to the last level up the Morris leadership pyramid is courage. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions. During my career, I have, I don't say fired people, but I've let people go. I've had graduate students who have not been able to to finish their career goals successfully because they didn't perform well. And you have to have the courage to make hard, tough decisions, and that's one of the goals of leadership.

Speaker 3: 42:48

And at the peak of the leadership pyramid are three words compliment, congratulate, celebrate. We need to let people know they did a good job. We need to celebrate their accomplishments. We need to give them credit for what has accomplished, been accomplished, and we need to make a big deal of this and a lot of organizations don't. They don't compliment, congratulate or celebrate. So so that's the no. It's not three characteristics, but it's. But it's the pyramid of leadership that I believe. And if there was one book that I could recommend to everybody, it's an ancient book and it's not really a leadership book, but it's Del Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people. To me, that's the greatest leadership book there is. So I would encourage people who are listening to this podcast to go out. You can get it real cheap at any used bookstore, but it is a great book.

Speaker 2: 43:53

So that's my thought on leadership. Oh, that's perfect. I love it. I just I like that top pyramid, that top the, the, the congratulate, compliment and celebrate that. That it goes back to starting a podcast.

Speaker 2: 44:12

We don't celebrate enough what we're thankful for, what we're grateful for. We hear so many negative things that we we've got to cut through some of that noise and I do agree with you that it's important that we celebrate and recognize those victories, because there's there's so much negativity that we need the positivity that comes with being up there at the top sometimes. And you know Gordon Davis, you know when he, when he made his significant contribution to Texas Tech University, one of the things that he said in his in his press conference was it's okay to win. It's okay to win. And I think, when you look at this pyramid that you just described, I would say that that pyramid is going to lead you to some successful conclusions and I think that's okay. It's especially okay if you get to the top and you compliment and celebrate and congratulate. I think that's exactly what winning is all about.

Speaker 3: 45:17

So, that's a good stuff.

Speaker 2: 45:18

I appreciate you sharing that. I wrote them all down.

Speaker 3: 45:22

Good. Whenever I do workshops on leadership, that's basically what I talk about and I give examples of my experiences. One of the fit into it.

Speaker 2: 45:37

One of the other reasons I like this, by the way, dr Morris. Tom Ziegler was speaking to some college kids somewhere there on the East Coast and he asked him this question. He said what is the opposite of gratitude? And he kind of let them stew around for a little bit and they kind of thought about it and he said the opposite of gratitude is entitlement. And he said you know, when you're grateful and you and I were talking earlier about your career that you get to teach gratefulness makes you feel energized, it makes you feel hopeful, it makes you feel happy, but when you feel entitled, your attitude starts to change. It's now I'm a little bit angry because that's not fair. That's mine. Give that to me. And so I think when you get to the top of that eight C pyramid that you described, I think you need, like you said earlier, we need to look down and see whose shoulders are we standing on that got us here and be grateful for that moment. And then we got to reach down and kind of give a hand up to the next person that's trying to get up there to those top three cities, and I think that's really what a leader should be working on and that's the plus.

Speaker 2: 47:13

I love the fact that you made them steps, because there is no elevator to the top. So that's true, you did good. You did good Well. Dr Moore, I want to say thank you on so many levels. Thank you for your career, thank you for your willingness to share all of your experiences and your willingness to still be on the lookout for something that you can pursue to unravel and and discover. I just love that about the fact that you're not done yet and I just I think that is that is great. Thank you also for sharing these words of wisdom. I took a lot of notes here of all of the little nuggets of gold that you shared in terms of career success, accomplishment, and I'm just grateful for the fact that you were willing to jump on here and do this with us.

Speaker 3: 48:18

Well, it's my pleasure to do so. I enjoy talking about agricultural education and FFA every chance I get Well we're going to amplify your voice with this.

Speaker 2: 48:29

So it obviously goes across a number of platforms for podcasts. It has both a domestic and international. I think that. I think that's the thing that really blows me away about these podcasts. I get a report on them and they're being downloaded and seen through newswire services around the world, so there's going to be people all around the world. They're going to hear you talk about ag education, so I think that's kind of unique. Ok, well, before we wrap up, we always have one fun question, so you get one last question what is the best concert that you've ever?

Speaker 3: 49:08

been to.

Speaker 3: 49:12

The best concert I've ever been to is going to be in three weeks. It's going to be Menheim Steamroller. I love their music. They're having a Christmas concert here in town Wow, I'm going to love that greatly. And if I were to identify a concert that I really, really appreciated and enjoyed at one time at the National FFA Convention on the last night, they would have an entertainer. They've had Roy Rogers, they've had these people. Today it's a lot more commercialized, but I was in Kansas City at the FFA Convention and they had a lady named Anita Bryant. Yes, she was a singer, yes, and it was a very patriotic concert that she sang a lot of great songs about America, and I don't know if this was staged or planned or the air conditioner came on, but she was singing America the Beautiful and the flags on the stage started waving just slightly waving, wow. I thought, well, maybe it's the air conditioner coming on, I don't know what, but Anita Bryant at the National FFA Convention, the closing night event. That was a memorable concert.

Speaker 2: 50:44

That's great, that is awesome. I love it. Well, all right. Well, thank you again, dr Moore, and to all of you that are tuning into the Growing Our Future podcast, we appreciate you stopping by. You know, abraham Lincoln said that the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. When I think about agriculture, I think if you want to know what the future is, you've got to grow it. Well, to grow something, you've got to plan it, you've got to take care of it. And that's what this podcast is about. It's about bringing people on who are willing to pour into others and say let me tell you about some experiences, let me tell you about some insights.

Speaker 2: 51:27

Our job as adults, our job, is to create opportunities. That's our job For the young people out there. Your job is to determine the outcome. So we need you to plant seeds of greatness. We need you to work hard and accomplish things even greater than we could have ever imagined, so that one day some historian like Dr Moore is going to write about your success. We're going to write about your idea and how your idea touched the future. Thank you all for joining us. Until we meet down the road, everybody be safe, take care of one another and do something incredible. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1: 52:10

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast. This show is sponsored by the Texas FFA Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen agricultural science education so students can develop their potential for personal growth, career success and leadership in a global marketplace. Learn more at mytexasffaorg.