Emma Claire Gallagher working with one of her cows.
When 15-year old Altus FFA Member Emma Claire Gallagher was asked about what her Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) has taught her, she said, “Nothing is achieved without hard work! It has taken my family years to build up to what we have now, and we’re still going.”
Gallagher is a sophomore at Altus Public Schools and is serving as the Altus FFA reporter this year. Her SAE is a successful stocker steer feedlot operation modeled after the one her family owns. She started her SAE by obtaining her majority rights, then purchasing the land and her cattle.
“My favorite part is saddling up my horse with my two brothers, Cale and Luke, right before the sun comes up and getting to work early,” she says.
Gallagher personally assists with the sorting, gathering and selling of the cattle her family has raised on the pasture and finishing them in both their feedlot and hers.
One of Gallagher’s personal goals is to keep her family’s legacy going alongside her two brothers. Once she graduates high school, she plans to attend Oklahoma State University and pursue a veterinary science degree, all while keeping up with her horses, calves and land around their feedlot and making sure the legacy of their operation continues.
Although Gallagher hasn’t had many big achievements with her SAE yet, she plans to continue using it for speech topics, FFA conversations and more.
