29 Jul From the Rabbit Barn to the Skyline

By the time I had a driver’s license, I was running a 250-rabbit hobby farm, president of my 4-H club, and top-ranked in my breed at the state and national level.

At thirteen, I moved up to open class. The youth division wasn’t competitive enough anymore. I ranked there too.

Most people hear “4-H hobby farm” and picture a kid with one rabbit and a blue ribbon.

That was not my house.

The 3 A.M. Minivan

My mother and I would get up at 3 a.m., load the minivan, and drive across three states to shows that had nothing to do with 4-H at all. I was up before she was. Packing crates. Checking latches. Making sure every rabbit made the trip.

Every year, I went to the Minnesota State Fair and stayed in the dorms above the barns for a week. You learn things in that week that don’t show up on a resume. How to win. How to lose in front of people. How the politics of a judging table actually work, at an age when most kids haven’t had to navigate politics of any kind.

The Work Nobody Saw

Running a 250-rabbit hobby farm is not a light commitment. It’s daily work with no days off.

Winters meant breaking ice out of water crocks before school, every single day, whether I felt like it or not. If you skip it, the animal suffers. You learn that lesson early.

On top of the animals, I was president of my 4-H club. Organizing meetings. Coordinating volunteer work. Making sure the quieter kids in the room still got heard. Community service wasn’t an assignment. It was just what you did.

Moving Up to Open Class

I was top-ranked in my breed at both the state and national level. At thirteen, the youth division stopped being a real challenge, so I moved into open class, competing against adults. I ranked there too.

That happened because I learned showmanship: how to present an animal, how to answer a judge’s questions, how to hold yourself together when the judge moved to the rabbit next to you instead.

Nobody teaches “how to speak to a judge under pressure” in a classroom. I learned it at thirteen.

The Same Girl, Thirty Years Later

Minnesota 4-H, as part of the University of Minnesota Extension, reached out a few weeks ago to tell that story. The girl from Olmsted County who is now the only female owner of a real estate investment and development company in downtown Dallas, working out of a building that once served as the FBI’s operation center after the JFK assassination.

They wanted to know how you get from a rabbit barn to that office.

I told them the truth.

The Same Playbook

Real estate isn’t really about buildings. It’s about people. Bringing everyone with different interests to the same table and pointing them at one goal. That’s the 4-H club model. I just run it on a bigger scale now.

In 2009, I organized the business coalition that created what is now the largest residential district in downtown Dallas. Nobody handed me that. I built it one relationship, one meeting, one unglamorous Tuesday at a time, the same way I built rabbit pedigrees. That same district is where 1823 Cadiz sits today.

It’s the same instinct that put me on the hiring committee for the Dallas police chief, and in rooms lobbying for homeless commissions most people never think about until they need one.

Watch: “Minnesota 4-H Four for Four with Tanya Ragan,” my 2021 interview with a current Minnesota 4-H member, four questions in four minutes. Watch here.

What I Tell 4-H Kids Now

Don’t downplay it in an interview. Don’t call it “just” a hobby.

Tell people: I was president of my club. I went to the state fair every year. Those are transferable skills. Put them on your resume and say them out loud.

Let the adults who want to help you help you. A project judge, a club leader. People want to see young, ambitious kids succeed, and they’ll go out of their way to mentor you if you ask.

Take the leadership role nobody else wants. It teaches you management and public speaking before you ever clock in anywhere. It compounds.

Full Circle

I stopped showing rabbits a long time ago.

I never stopped running club meetings.

I just changed what the club was building.

Read the full University of Minnesota Extension feature here.