Hello! My name is Andrew Ferrat. I am currently a junior at Montana State University-Bozeman majoring in Agriculture Education. I’ll be a student teacher in the spring of 2023 and from there I’ll be applying for teaching positions throughout the great state of Montana! I am ever grateful to the Montana CattleWomen for selecting me as the 2021 MTCW Scholarship recipient. Thank you so much - I am honored! Now a little about my background in agriculture and the beef industry. I grew up as the fifth generation on a cow-calf operation in Toston, MT. My family’s ranch is unique in several ways. One, we are a dedicated fall calving operation. Two, we have been raising Limousin cattle since 1972, and began registering purebred Limousin in 2016. Being a fall calver, this presented an obstacle for me wanting to take my own calf to our county 4-H fair, since the fall calf was too old for our fair. Therefore I began my own limousin herd in 2013 with help from my family and a youth loan through the MT Dept. of Ag. With this loan, I purchased my own brand, bought a handful of purebred commercial cows from my great-grandparents and had the cows AI’d for spring calving. The first 2 calf crops produced only heifers, but I kept going with the project and eventually got only 1 bull calf a year for 3 years! Since I only had one male each of those three years, it became the one steer that I entered in our county fair. Today, I still own a handful of cows that have since been rolled back into the fall calving herd for easier management while I am away at college. I look forward to the opportunities I find to get back home to help on the ranch. Someday I hope to be on the ranch much more, but for now I am looking forward to sharing my knowledge about agriculture and the beef industry with my future students. Thank you again MTCW for choosing me as the 2021 scholarship recipient!