Oklahoma’s Cherokee County Farm Bureau and Payne County Farm Bureau were each recognized with County Activities of Excellence Awards at the 2026 American Farm Bureau convention in Anaheim in January.
The counties were two of 24 counties recognized by AFBF for their commitment to offering quality programming to their counties to promote Farm Bureau and support their local agriculture communities.
Cherokee County Farm Bureau was recognized for their hay wrap take-back program, a competition between area schools to see who could collect the most hay wrap. This competition provided an opportunity for students to get involved in agriculture, while also helping clean up pastures.
“We were recognized in Oklahoma for this award as well and that was a huge honor,” said Mandi Halpin, Cherokee County Farm Bureau member. “To be recognized by the American Farm Bureau is just above and beyond what we could have expected.”
The participating schools submitted the amount of hay wrap they collected and Cherokee County Farm Bureau presented the top five schools with cash prizes.
“We are excited that this project has taken off,” Halpin said. “Ottawa County has taken off with it, and we are excited to see where it goes in the future.”
Payne County Farm Bureau earned a CAE award for their block party, an event aimed to share the story of Farm Bureau and agriculture with their local community. In their second-annual outreach event, Payne County Farm Bureau welcomed over 1,400 attendees with vendors, games and fun for the whole family.
“Block party is a community outreach event that we hosted at our county office that was open to the community free of charge,” said Taylor Benson, Payne County Farm Bureau administrator. “The goal of this event was to educate the attendees on who and what we are and educate them on agriculture.”
This free event brought in both members and Payne County residents to the Payne County Farm Bureau office giving them a hands on look to Farm Bureau and agriculture.
“It meant a lot to us to win this award,” said Benson. “We did this as a community event and it was amazing that OKFB honored us for our hard work, and it means so much more that AFBF saw our event and thought it was good enough to compete against all of the other amazing county programs.”
