They mooed when I walked into class. Someone taped a straw to my locker with “BARN PRINCESS” scrawled across it. I’d scrub my boots in the gas station sink before school, but everyone knew my family ran a dairy farm. To them, I was “cow girl.” I tried to hide it—perfume, silence—but I loved the farm. The rhythm of milking before dawn, calves blinking into life, Dad saying, “When your feet are on soil, your head’s clearer.” Still, I shrank until senior year’s Spirit Day: “Dress as your future self.” I came as me—boots, jeans, Dad’s hat. No costume.

People snickered, but our ag teacher, Mr. Carrillo, handed me a flyer for a statewide FFA speech contest: The Future of Farming. “You could win this,” he said. So I entered. My speech began, “I’m seventeen, and I’ve delivered six calves and once spent all night warming a goat in the laundry room. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” I won regionals, then state.

Not long after, I was voted homecoming queen. Someone left a note in my locker: “You were always real. Don’t let the plastic ones win.” Months later, I spoke at a farm bureau event. A woman offered me a chance to speak in D.C. about youth in agriculture.

I flew there—boots polished, proud of every speck of dirt that got me that far. They called me “cow girl” to mock me. Now, I wear it like a crown. Never shrink to fit in. The right people will see you.