The GOAT: Mattie Leigh Wood has been excelling in FFA since receiving her first 'pet' at age 5
Feb. 18—Goats have a reputation for being stubborn — a reputation that Holly Pond's Mattie Leigh Wood says they definitely deserve. Then again, maybe all they really need is the right handler...someone, in fact, like Mattie herself.
After all, the 2022 Farm City Outstanding Future Farmers of America honoree says she's been gently, patiently butting heads with her favorite farm animal since the diminutive childhood days when she stood at about their height.
"When I was probably five, my dad got me a goat — kind of to learn how to raise it, but also kind of as a pet," says Mattie, a Holly Pond senior whose well-spoken demeanor suits her current role as the school's FFA president.
"That's when I started learning how to handle them. They're really closer to a pet than any other livestock you're gonna get, and they're the smartest animals I've been around. They are stubborn, though — they're very stubborn!"
With guidance from Ag teacher Rusty Roden, Mattie earned this year's student FFA honors at Farm City, not only by prepping directly for the competitive event itself, but by living the life of a farmer on her family's 30-acre farm.
"She's always been active in any and all kinds of agriculture, and she's always done anything that her Ag teachers have asked her to do," says her father Matt Wood, who alongside wife Amy have raised cattle, poultry, goats, and even sheep over the past 27 years at Holly Pond. "She's always done it to the best of her ability, and we've always supported her in anything she wanted to do. She works here on the farm, she feeds the animals every day, and she always helps in the chicken houses."
It's goats, though, that have held Mattie's interest since she was little, eventually drawing her toward leading roles in her school's packed FFA calendar once she entered the Holly Pond chapter as a ninth grader.
"I'm on the livestock and meat judging team, and I show goats," she says, outlining an FFA activity schedule that effectively spans the entire academic year. "It's really busy, because we have show season, and after that's over you go straight into livestock and meat judging season. So from about October through March, there's no break. and outside of those times, you're getting ready to go to competitions and everything — so even in August and September, you're busy."
At Holly Pond, most of the student body participates in FFA, a reflection of generations of local stewardship evident to anyone who surveys the rural eastern Cullman County landscape. "Most people see what we do as 'just farming,' — like, just having these animals and stuff," says Mattie of observers unacquainted with the farming life.
"But it's a lot more than that. We go out and we do a lot of things for our community through FFA and for our school. FFA is a big deal at Holly Pond, because most of our parents — farming is what they do."
Nature in general (and goats in particular) have a tendency to push back against people's best efforts at taming the untamable. But showing goats has taught Mattie a thing or two about how to coax cooperation where none should exist — though she admits that the right animal can make all the difference.
"Sometimes it'll work with you, and sometimes it won't," she says, explaining the successful streak she's enjoyed since hitting it off with Maverick, her current Boer show goat. "This year, my goat was practically a pet. He was so good to work with right from the start. He's named after Top Gun...I love Top Gun."
Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 234.
