Rancher paved the way for female FFA membership 

By Linda DuBois

More than 1 million youths nationwide learn about agriculture and develop leadership skills through FFA. In California, the organization is thriving, with 104,469 members in 360 chapters. Almost half of those members are girls.

This wasn’t always the case. FFA was an all-male organization for more than 40 years.

Thanks in part to the efforts of female pioneers who paved the way, membership opened up to girls in 1969.

Among the pioneers is Mary Rickert of Shasta County. Now 72, Rickert and her husband Jim are cattle ranchers and farmers who also appraise, broker and manage farmland for others. The longtime Farm Bureau members have earned several awards for their environmental stewardship, including the Leopold Conservation Award in 2015. Mary Rickert has also served years in community and public service, including two terms on the Shasta County Board of Supervisors from 2016 through 2024.

Rickert says she values all youth agriculture organizations but especially cherishes FFA because it’s a family legacy. When her grandfather, Julian McPhee, was the chief of the State Bureau of Agricultural Education, he established the California state headquarters of FFA—then called Future Farmers of America—in 1928, shortly after the national FFA was formed. Later, Rickert’s father taught FFA agriculture classes. Her three children were FFA members, and now she has grandchildren involved.

“I’ve been accused of having blue and gold blood,” Rickert said, laughing.

Yet, for most of her childhood, she wasn’t allowed to participate.

Born Mary LaSalle in Hanford, Rickert was one of six children who grew up around dairy cattle and “lived and breathed agriculture.” As a young girl, she enjoyed showing the family’s Holsteins in open competitions and remembers practicing “for hours” with her brothers. 

But she had to watch from the sidelines as her two older brothers competed in FFA livestock shows, speech contests and other competitions. She remembers longing to join them.

“When you grow up in a household of primarily brothers, you want to do everything they do,” she said.

“My dad would bring state FFA officers to our home all the time, and I was always inspired by their leadership qualities and their ability to influence young people. … So, in my mind, it was important that females be able to participate in FFA,” she added. “It’s a great organization and develops a lot of leadership skills.”

But earning that right “was a battle,” she said.

“I can remember a few ag teachers really fought it,” she said. “Even my father wasn’t too excited about it. I think a lot of it was they just wanted to stick with tradition. They were used to having all-male members, and the girls would be something called the ‘chapter sweethearts.’ Remember, it was very patriarchal society in the ’60s.”

However, even though the National FFA banned female membership, some state and local FFA chapters had begun allowing girls to participate in activities and competitions.

In May 1968, 15-year-old Rickert and about six other like-minded friends headed to the annual FFA state convention at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, the state FFA headquarters. The girls stood before the delegates and made their case for being allowed to participate.

“They voted—and it passed!” Rickert said. “I think they saw the handwriting on the wall and knew that other states were allowing females to participate, so they should too.”

At the state finals in May the following year, Rickert, her brother and another boy competed in cattle judging. The team didn’t do well, but Rickert was named High Individual.

“It was kind of a big moment for me because it was a bit of a fight to allow girls to be able to compete with boys, and I got to prove to them that, yes, we could do anything they could do,” she said.

The following August, she remembers being the first girl to show an animal at the California State Fair. There were no dormitories for girls, so she stayed at the home of Warren Reed, the state FFA adviser at the time.

Two months later, in October 1969, after several prior unsuccessful attempts, the National FFA voted to strike the word “male” from the constitution—after a California delegate, Paul Bankhead, made the motion—opening the door for full female membership in every state.

“I still smile whenever I see a girl in an FFA jacket, because I was there, more or less, on the front lines,” Rickert said.

This is especially true of her two granddaughters in FFA: Madison Rickert of Durham High School in Butte County and Nora Ehn of Hollister High School in San Benito County.

She recalls seeing Nora show her goat at the San Benito County Fair. “Needless to say, when I went down there and saw my granddaughter with her FFA jacket on, I did shed a tear,” Rickert said. 

“It was a watershed moment for me,” she added. “I’m not a very emotional person, but I still choke up talking about it. It was very touching for me to see that she’s carrying on the family legacy. In fact, I think she’s going to the state conference this year.

“As you go through life, you want to make a difference, and to think that one little effort I made influenced what two of my granddaughters are experiencing,” Rickert said. “That’s really a good feeling.”

Rickert said she believes FFA is more important now than ever—for boys and girls.

“I’m very concerned about the future of agriculture,” she said. “A lot of commodity prices are really suffering right now. Everything costs so much more than it did even three, four or five years ago.

“The other thing is so many of our farmers and ranchers are aging out and retiring, and we’re seeing a real decline in the actual number of people involved in agriculture,” she added, pointing out that California is the fifth-largest economy in the world. 

“We have a big responsibility to keep producing food and fiber,” Rickert said. “We need to encourage young people to consider a career in agriculture, and I think FFA is an opportunity for them to be exposed to that idea. It really opens that door for young people.”

(Linda DuBois is the assistant editor of California Bountiful magazine. She may be contacted at ldubois@cfbf.com.)