Her time at Northwest and a summer internship in agricultural lending have broadened her vision of what that future could look like.<\/p>\n
![\"Breann](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/260910breann-poole-portrait-fall2026-lc-123.jpg\")
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Breann Poole is pictured with cattle on Northwest’s R.T Wright Farm. (Photo by Lilly Cook\/Northwest Missouri State University)<\/p>\n
Research project pointed her to Northwest<\/p>\n
Growing up around dairy farming, Poole developed a particular passion for Guernsey cattle and became heavily involved in the American Guernsey Association. Through one of their youth events, she learned about J.C. Penney, the businessman who founded J.C. Penney department stores and purchased Emmadine Farm in New York during the early 1920s.<\/p>\n
Penney began breeding high-quality Guernsey cattle there, developing what became known as the Foremost line. The herd earned numerous grand championships and helped elevate the standard of the breed.<\/p>\n
Decades later, in 2020, a cooperative partnership between the University of Missouri\u2019s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and Northwest\u2019s School of Agricultural Sciences<\/a> brought 30 head of the historic Guernsey herd to Northwest\u2019s R.T. Wright Farm<\/a>.<\/p>\n Poole learned of Northwest while researching the herd for her display. Years later, when it was time to start looking at colleges, she remembered and toured Northwest as a senior in high school.<\/p>\n She found the University had everything she was looking for in her degree. The rural location, farm and financial assistance were all factors that contributed to her decision to attend.<\/p>\n Connections lead to internship, scholarship<\/p>\n At Northwest, Poole is active in the School of Agricultural Sciences and works at Northwest\u2019s dairy farm. She said the relationships she\u2019s built with faculty and students have been among the highlights of her college experience.<\/p>\n \u201cThe school of agriculture in general has been a really great place to be,\u201d Poole said. \u201cAll the professors are so nice, open and kind, and I always talk to them. That\u2019s been really great, and I\u2019ve made a lot of good friends.\u201d<\/p>\n Poole\u2019s agriculture connections helped her secure an internship this summer with Horizon Farm Credit, an agricultural lending company headquartered in Pennsylvania. She worked on projects involving market intelligence, shadowing, lending case studies and credit analysis, gaining experience in an area of agriculture she had not previously considered as a career path.<\/p>\n \u201cI got a lot of agricultural lending experience that I really liked,\u201d Poole said. \u201cI just want to be able to give back to the agriculture industry. I think agricultural finance is a really good place for that because it\u2019s really helping farmers get the resources they need to build the legacies of their family farms.\u201d<\/p>\n