Crying in Public

The fourth seminar for VALOR Class 7 led us throughout the beautiful Shenandoah Valley – my home.

The core theme around our seminar was “Why?”

So WHY am I writing a blog post about crying in public? Stick with me. It’ll make sense.

Amanda, you tell everyone about Andy

It was at ATL Farms, short for Adam & Taylor Long Farms, where I got a bit of an “Eminem” type feeling (you know, “knees weak, arms are heavy..”). It was there, standing in their beautiful new shop with their shiny new autonomous irrigation tractor and perfectly maintained John Deere tractors, I felt great sadness. You see Adam, Taylor, and I have maybe just one thing in common in our lives – a shared friend. A friend named Andy King.

Andy, a U.S. Army Reservist, sacrificed his life for our country on November 2, 2023. He was 27.

Andy was a husband. Andy was a father to a beautiful baby girl. Andy was a brother and brother-in-law to several awesome men and women. Andy was a Hokie. Andy was a true leader at Helena Agri-Enterprises. And Andy was a friend to many, many people.

So when Andy came up (of course he came up!) during our tour when a question was asked about how ATL farms makes agronomic decisions, the Long brothers turned the mic to me to share who Andy was.

“Amanda, you tell everyone about Andy,” said Taylor.

Cue the tears. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do him justice. My entire class watched tears stream down my face instead of learning about this mystery genius named Andy that I only got to know for a handful of years. Andy seemed to know everything about the Bible, sports, and crop protection (Although, I think he did overapply in my backyard at one point. The roses never looked the same). Andy somehow went jogging several times each week with all of his giant dogs in tow. Andy and Amy would welcome all of us into their home with our five million children in tow only for us to eat, drink, and leave the place a total wreck. And they would want to repeat it all the next week.

At every stop of this Shenandoah Valley seminar, we would ask our hosts “Why do you do this?” And at every stop the answer was something that indicated the farmers were embracing a legacy of something bigger than themselves. This was a spirit we hadn’t seen in other regions.

You see Andy and his little family had “The Why.” Despite not coming from agriculture, he had an engrained Shenandoah Valley spirit for farming within him. If you knew Andy, you knew that all of his thoughts, all of his actions, and all of his words were all to be the best. Andy was relentless, goal-driven, and courageous.

We follow those who lead not because we have to but because we want to. -Simon Sinek

There’s no doubt Andy’s team at Helena, his family, his soldiers, and his friends all followed Andy because they wanted to.

So to anyone reading this, remember that life is short. Make sure your why always makes perfect sense. And when it doesn’t, relentlessly pursue a shift to something that does.

Hell yea.