TEENAGE grazier Haylee Armstrong was a student at Ashwell State School, and last week she returned to speak about how to run a business.
Haylee is 17 and lives with her mum Jules and sister Jess on a 120-hectare property at Calvert.
The trio run cattle and Haylee has the Rosewood Coos’ Highland stud while her mum has the Vagabond Highland stud.
Haylee established her stud when she was 14 and that’s what she spoke to the students about.
Hillary Krause is the school’s Year 5/6 teacher and she invited Haylee because the students were doing their business studies module.
The young grazier brought a prop along but it wasn’t something she could carry, it was a Highland named Mikey.
“Haylee was one of my students and she was school captain when she was here,” Hillary said.
“We are studying business and I thought it would be wonderful if she could come and tell the kids what inspired her and how she is going because she’s been doing it for a few years now.”
The visit was pre-empted by letters that arrived in Haylee’s letter box because professional correspondence was a task required of the Ashwell students.
Hillary describes Haylee as being an amazing student who was very capable academically.
“We are all thrilled to see that Haylee is going to be one of Rosewood State High School’s captains next year,” she said.
Haylee said some of the students at her former school remembered her as school captain.
Learnings came from her side too and she spent some time working on a speech that would motivate the younger students.
She’s new to public speaking and it’s something she is working on so that she can become a stronger and more confident speaker.
“I’m definitely going to practise and after the speech I discovered that I really like it and I am glad I did it,” she said.
“I have done the Rotary Youth Speaks [public speaking] competition as well as Toastmasters, and I can look back and can see how far I’ve come.”
At just 17, Haylee has a lot of life ahead of her.
She said she wanted to continue growing her Rosewood Coos’ stud and was also interested in becoming a veterinary doctor or a firefighter.
