Jay Bowen Scholarship

After finishing my bachelor’s degree in Animal Sciences at Texas State and attending vet school I would like to open a clinic for large animals and livestock. My clinic would specialize in home calls for breeding, labor and delivery, and nutrition. Specializing in these areas would make veterinarians more accessible, improving animal welfare and relieving some stress of raising livestock. I chose the Animal Science pathway to become a vet because I have always enjoyed biology, genetics, and barn-yard animals. Having grown up around my grandma's cows I have always been fascinated with the gentle giants. As I researched more into ranching, I discovered the main loss in the ranching community is because of animal welfare. This realization inspired me to go to school to become a vet and open my clinic, in the hopes to better the ranching community and make owning livestock more profitable. Through my participation in Future Farmers of America's Advanced Animal Science and Wildlife classes I discovered breeding is one of the most expensive and dangerous parts of raising large amounts of livestock. Most ranches don't have enough land, a male, enough males, or enough workers to supervise labor and delivery. Artificial insemination is a way to avoid owning a male, but most AI requires farmers to talk to vets at least once. Even one trip to the vet, or asking a vet to perform the AI is costly. A vet clinic that focuses only on home calls would be less expensive for ranches. Instead of paying for the clients the vet missed while at ranches, the farmer would only have to pay for the time spent on their ranch. My clinic would also allow ranchers to bring a breeding pair to the clinic and use the land there. Breeding rate increases when animals are given more land, which will help increase the profitability of livestock. With a lower cost farmers could afford to have a vet visit more often, increasing animal welfare. Healthier animals equal more profit and a more enjoyable ranching experience. Labor and delivery is the main reason breeding animals are so expensive. By lowering the cost of veterinary services, more ranchers could afford to have an on-call vet. This would alleviate the need for hiring extra hands during the delivery season because a vet could be on the ranch at all times. By having experienced veterinarians on hand, the rate of successful deliveries should go up, improving the profitability of owning livestock. Nutrition is a large part of growing profitable animals. Healthier animals produce healthier offspring and yield better profitability. By including a nutrition office in my clinic, an experienced person could visit farms and recommend beneficial feed depending on the ranch and farmer, instead of just the standard for animals themselves. Similar to vets only doing home calls, a nutritionist who only visits farms instead of working in an office would also become more affordable because no profit is missed while on farm calls. By alleviating the need to visit a vet clinic, veterinarians and nutritionists now have more time to spend on their clients, and not worry about a busy clinic waiting for their attention. This would improve the ranching community and agriculture industry.

I have been undecided about what career I want to pursue in the future, but I know without a doubt that I want to be involved with animals everyday. I have raised rabbits for nine years for the county youth show and 4H, cared for several different pets, and I have a summer job working at a boarding and grooming business for pets. My dream is to be able to be around animals everyday of my life because they absolutely make my day! I plan on making a difference in the career of my choice in the future by treating everybody(including animals) with kindness and respect. I hope that my kindness and respect will brighten everybody's day and help them to love their job. When somebody treats others with kindness, they make others feel good and even make themselves feel good too. I want to make others happy be treating them kindly and giving them my undivided attention. One of the kindest things that you can do is to just listen to others problems. Thankfully, I am really good at listening to others and sympathizing their pain. I love to help people and I try to advise them the best I can. Even fulfilling small acts of kindness can change the world, so there isn't a single reason why we shouldn't treat others with kindness. Clearly, we don't enjoy everybody's company, but we should still treat others with kindness even if they aren't kind to you. Treating others with respect can make a huge impact because it makes the other person feel important and even contributes to the person's job satisfaction. I want everybody to pursue jobs they love so that they can have the best life possible. Many people that feel disrespected and unappreciated, absolutely hate their jobs. Respect should automatically be in every professional and personal relationship because it creates healthy relationships. Everybody has certain people in their lives that make it difficult to respect them, but everybody deserves to feel respected in both professional and personal relationships. Respect is a necessity because it boosts people's moods, creates a fair environment, often a stress reliever, and gives a feeling of importance and purpose in life. I truly believe that treating others with kindness and respect can change any job field and can definitely change the world. I want to treat others with kindness and respect in my career so that they can have a great job experience and so that I can also enjoy my career. Usually, treating others with kindness and respect means that you get it in return. With more kindness and respect in a chosen career, the happier the employees and employers will be.

I've been surrounded by animals my whole life. Whether that be my family's combined 8 dachshunds, my horse Patches during my 9 long years as an equestrian, or the several small animals I've encountered throughout my extensive canine research and veterinary internships. Through these experiences, I've gained significant interest in Animal Science. However, thanks to a course I took junior year, AP Environmental Science, I find myself also intrigued by sustainability and conservation. This all being said, I currently hope to pursue a career as a wildlife biologist, conservationist, and veterinarian. While the destruction our society is inflicting on our environment is steadily increasing, it seems as if wildlife conservation efforts are rapidly declining. I find this truly irritating. I believe the main problem is the blatant lack of engagement and urgency from young generations. In my upcoming academic years, I plan to fix this problem. With social media platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok growing rapidly in popularity, It would be extremely beneficial for conservation organizations and academic institutions to collaborate with largely followed influencers to directly reach young audiences. This could be through themed campaigns, brand sponsorships, or simply even a 30-second story of an influencer discussing resources to learn more about recent conservation efforts. Although a slightly unrealistic example, imagine how many websites visits National Geographic would receive if Kim Kardashian posted a short Instagram story. Unfortunately, I have doubts this will come to fruition. I guess I’ll just have to do it myself. Beginning my freshman year of college, I plan to start a series of video diaries on Tik Tok. Here, I will openly document my personal experiences navigating classes, summer internships, research opportunities, and possible study abroad adventures while simultaneously exposing the current state of our environment to the rawest and most vulnerable state. As a teenager, I understand current trends and mainstream media, which gives me the unique ability to connect with young audiences and produce relatable, creative, and engaging content. As time goes on, I can build a platform that not only attracts young generations but parents and elders alike. Ideally, I would like to continue my ‘vlogging’ when I enter the peak of my career as a wildlife veterinarian and researcher. Hopefully, at this point in my career, I will have inspired more youth to advocate for wildlife and practice sustainability in their daily lives. This is how I plan on making a difference in animal science and wildlife conservation, even if it's one follower at a time.