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2022 High Cotton winner Randall Bankhead credits his success not only to his methodology but his "village."

Shelley E. Huguley, Editor

February 24, 2022

20 Slides

Randall Bankhead, the Southwest's 2022 High Cotton Award winner, will tell you it takes a village to raise a cotton crop. While his farm practices such as cover crops, crop rotation and no-till play a vital role, it's more about the people in his village that make his operation successful. 

See, Regenerative farming, 'village effect' earn cotton producer top award 

Take a look at this gallery to learn more about his family and other individuals important to his cotton production. Also, learn more about his 12-species cover crops.

See, High Cotton consensus: 'It takes a village to grow cotton'

Get a bird's eye view of his operation through drone footage provided by Chase Schuchard, Bankhead's son-in-law. 

Look closely, you might even spot Farm Press Editor Shelley Huguley riding in the stripper baler cab.  

See, The 'village effect'

Read more about:

High Cotton

About the Author(s)

Shelley E. Huguley

Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

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