By Cowgirl Candace. Images by Laney Martin.

Georgia agriculture epitomizes more than an industry. It’s a living, breathing inheritance for me. Passed down through calloused hands, stitched into Sunday dinner debates, and measured by access, not acres. And yet for generations, the systems that guided agriculture policy and power have rarely reflected the full breadth of the people working the land. That’s what makes this moment different. This time, I’m not standing on the sidelines to storytell. I’m fully in it. And not alone. 

This partnership marks the first time the three of us have worked together. The first time Felicia and Millicent, biological sisters, have ever collaborated professionally. And somehow, it doesn’t feel new. It feels like alignment we’ve been growing toward our whole lives. I’ve spent my life listening to the land. Really listening. The way red clay shifts under your boots after a hard rain. The way my cattleman and arboriculture father pauses before answering my questions, weighing truth against experience. These stories rise from porches, pastures, and pickups long before they enter policy rooms.

So when I found myself on the campaign trail with Felicia and Millicent, I recognized the shift immediately. Behind Democratic candidate Sedrick Rowe’s run for Georgia Agriculture Commissioner is a team that doesn’t just understand agriculture. We’ve lived it, studied it, financed it, and fought for it. Three women. Three Georgia peaches. Three professionals connected through our farming families and agriculture careers in service to producers and rural communities. We didn’t arrive here by accident. We’re the daughters and granddaughters of land-grant legacies. All raised on institutions and acres that taught us both discipline and possibility.

My grandparents, Amos and June Morrow, fell in love and walked the campus of Fort Valley State University way before Cowgirl Candace was a thought. Their children, Cowboy Steve Boy McCoy (my father), graduated from Savannah State while his sister, Kathy Morrow (my auntie), carried that same degree determination at Florida A&M University (FAMU). That lineage only sharpened my farming knowledge and country Western curiosity. Linking up with Felicia and Millicent automatically meant we weren’t your typical campaign operatives. We’re agriculture experts first: strategists, storytellers, and systems thinkers. We bring lived experience into a political space that often lacks it. Together, we represent a new generation of leadership: blending policy with people, digital data with dirt, and honest narratives with strategy. And we’re doing it with intention to push Sedrick toward the May 19 primary finish line with a campaign grounded in innovation and heritage.

Felicia: Walking the Rows, Calling the Shots

If you want to understand the heartbeat of this campaign, start with Felicia. She’s from Fort Valley — the Peach Capital of the World — but her work stretches beyond orchard lines. I’ve watched her move across this state like she’s mapping memory, stopping at farms to talk and truly listen. For the past four years, she’s served as agriculture program manager at the Southwest Georgia Project in Albany, working alongside more than 200 farms across 14 counties. Not from behind a desk. In the dirt where the real decisions live.

“We’re moving the needle,” she told me, steady as ever. “In technical assistance, regenerative farming education, and access to programs that help farmers digitize operations and develop agritourism initiatives to sustain their land.” That same clarity is what she brings to this campaign. As Sedrick’s campaign manager, Felicia is the engine behind the operation. She’s the one setting the pace, aligning the strategy, and making sure every moving part hits the ground with purpose. She’s the nerve center. Messaging, field outreach, scheduling, voter engagement, partnerships all runs through her hands before it reaches the public.

And with Felicia, it makes haste. “In this political space, you have to work boldly,” she said. “Candace, Millicent, and I move so fast and efficiently you would think there’s 15 people on our team.” It’s so true. What looks effortless is actually alignment. We’re the kind of Southern dream team you only get when everyone knows their lane and respects the work it takes to run it. “We make our roles look easy because everyone is working together and tapping into our professional skills,” she said. “It works. It’s working well.”

Felicia is also a land-grant graduate of Florida A&M University, where she studied landscape design. A discipline rooted in vision, balance, structure, and growth. But her creativity didn’t stop there. After graduating from FAMU, she continued her education at a European pastry arts school before launching her own dessert business that specialized in weddings, bridal showers, and baby showers.

And honestly? How Felicia blends her artistry, hospitality, logistics, and land stewardship explains so much about how she moves through the world. She knows how to design experiences people remember. That same foundation now shows up in this campaign as she expands outreach efforts customized to help farmers across Georgia better understand the agricultural issues at hand. Because for this cowgirl, the work doesn’t stop on election day.

“We came into this campaign process with a clean slate in how we connect and reach people online then engage on the ground,” she said. Even in the middle of long days and fast-moving strategy, there’s still room for joy. “It’s been a pleasure because we all make it fun, including Sedrick,” she told me. Balancing discipline, ease, structure, and spirit is what makes her different. She’s without a doubt a campaign cultivator.

Millicent: Reconstructing Systems That Actually Serve Us

Millicent is Felicia’s younger sister and moves a bit differently. Where Felicia walks the land, Millicent studies systems. A Fort Valley State University graduate in agricultural economics, she’s a legacy in every sense. Both of their parents attended the same land-grant institution, and that lineage carried her into the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency. Millicent spent a decade learning agricultural lending from the inside out. “After college, that pathway program allowed me to see the production side of million-dollar livestock operations to small-scale farms, meeting hardworking farmers across the nation,” she shared.

But insight like that comes with a reckoning. “I got to the point where I saw farms that needed help, and I couldn’t do anything about it because the programs were so strict,” she said. “It was like I was fighting my own people, and I didn’t like that feeling.” So she pivoted. She left federal service as a loan specialist, taking that institutional knowledge with her and applying it where it could actually make a difference. “Federal service gave me the skills to work behind the scenes, building out budgets that made sense for producers.”

Her track record is deep, leading teams of up to 60, processing millions in program assistance, contributing to national policy efforts, and earning top-tier USDA honors that aren’t handed out lightly. Millicent is a recipient of the USDA’s 2024 Secretary’s Honor Awards, which is the highest non-monetary recognition across more than 10,000 employees. She’s also earned the USDA FSA Administrator Award for Service in Agriculture, contributed to the 2024 Extraordinary Measures Program, and was recognized on the 2022 Administrator’s Award-Winning Tech Talk Team. Those honors don’t come easy. Oh, no darlings. They come from precision, pressure, and a proven ability to guide in the most complex corners of agricultural policy and finance.

Now, she’s bringing that same expertise into the campaign space and doing it on her own terms. “This campaign experience has been complete freedom,” she said. “We’re literally making something out of nothing.” I’ve watched Millicent design structures where there was none. Turn my digital ideas into real community action. “I’m learning the political space and able to flex my creative muscles,” she said with her girly girl smile. But what stays with me most is what she emphasized: “This team is a sisterhood. The support we all need on jobs. Felicia and Candace help me not second guess my abilities. They’re my hype squad, and only a true sisterhood does that.” You can’t fake this kind of trust.

Cowgirl Candace: Telling the Truth of the Land

And then there’s me. Cowgirl Candace. Fourth-generation Georgia farmer. Storyteller by trade. Truth-teller by calling. A 10-time, award-winning journalist whose work spans higher education, outdoor adventure, and rural South agriculture. Documenting fields I don’t merely cover but come from. Everything I do starts from the same place: the centennial land that raised me. My story didn’t start in a newsroom or on a campaign trail. My Great-Grandfather Edward “Dolly” Hill’s farmstead, Edward Hill Farm, taught me how to receive information before I speak. Observe before I write. Honor the people whose stories too often get overlooked. That foundation launched me into the Digital Age.

I established my international storytelling career in Middle Georgia and became recognized across global stages. My work has moved through campaigns and collaborations with Durango Boots, Justin Boots, Wrangler, National 4-H Council, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, REI Co-op, Patagonia, Cotopaxi, and CLIF Bar. Alongside editorial contributions to Airstream Life, Cowboys & Indians Magazine, and Western Life Today. I’ve helped document narratives that carry agriculture, culture, and conservation into rooms that don’t always know how to hold them with care. And in doing so, I made international history as the first Georgian (and Black woman) to grace the cover of Canadian lifestyle magazine Trailblazher.

But none of that changed my direction. It simply clarified it. I’m not just interested in telling stories. I’m committed to how those stories translate into access, funding, and real opportunity for farmers and conservationists, especially across Georgia’s Black Belt Region. On this campaign, I serve as publicist and communications lead. But truthfully, ya cowgirl is the storytelling bridge. I take what Felicia is hearing in the field, Millicent is designing behind the scenes, and I repurpose it into something people can feel. Because if folks can’t see it, they won’t fight for it. And I’ve cultivated my pioneering livelihood by making sure they see us. Clearly. Accurately. Respectfully.

I’ve watched seasons shift, listened to elders speak in truths that didn’t need polishing, and understood as a cowgirl kid that agriculture is as much about people as it is production. That foundation carried me far beyond the fence line — co-scriptwriting for Venus Williams, contributing to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour Book in collaboration with Saint Heron, and interpreting agricultural life into narratives that resonate across industries and audiences. No matter how far the work travels, it always circles back home.

What We’re Actually Tending on Peach Land

“We’re only going to get better at campaign life,” Felicia said without hesitation. “We came into this opportunity with a clean slate in how we connect and reach people online then engage on the ground.” The joy work is real. It’s backed by decades of combined experience in agriculture, finance, policy, storytelling, and community activations. No outdated playbooks. No borrowed strategies. Just us and everything the land taught us.

We come from families who believed in land, education, and doing the work even when the systems weren’t planned for us. Now, we’re carrying that forward together. Come Tuesday, May 19, Georgia will cast its votes, but long before that ballot is counted, something deeper has already taken root. Three Georgia women. Three agriculture experts. One shared vision. We’re not just pushing a candidate forward. We’re rewriting the playbook from our red clay homes. Built for the people and bold enough to carry Georgia agriculture into its next chapter.