Montana Member Andee Baker Receives Prestigious Truman Scholarship

Andee Baker, a senior at Montana State University and Carbon/Stillwater Counties Farm Bureau member, was recently recognized as a Truman Scholar. The Truman Scholarship recognizes students with outstanding leadership potential, community involvement and academic achievement. Baker’s collegiate experience included working as a summer intern at AFBF in 2021, on the Leadership, Education & Engagement Team.

The Truman Scholarship recognizes students with outstanding leadership potential, community involvement and academic achievement. Through the scholarship, Baker will receive funding for graduate studies along with leadership training, career counseling and internship and fellowship opportunities within the federal government. She is the first MSU student to receive a Truman Scholarship since 2020 and one of 62 honorees nationally for 2023, selected from more than 700 nominees across 275 institutions.

Baker has been involved in agricultural activities her entire life, including holding leadership roles in both 4-H and FFA. It wasn’t until she got older that she recognized the mental health struggles that often accompany careers in agriculture, coupled with Montana’s suicide rate, which is the third-highest in the nation. Ever since she discovered that connection, Baker has made it her mission to help agriculturalists of all ages access resources and live more fulfilled lives.

It’s a calling that has manifested through hours of service and engagement in addition to Baker’s stellar academic record, which will culminate when she graduates this fall. In 2020, she ran for national FFA office, and while she wasn’t elected, she was introduced to a burgeoning interest from high school FFA students in mental health.

“I realized through that process that so many youths in agriculture were reaching out with the idea that it’s okay not to be okay,” she said. “I ended up writing my state FFA speech about mental health outreach for young students. I don’t hear of a lot of people going into agricultural mental health, so I thought, let’s fix something that needs to be fixed.”