Gratitude headlines commencement address

KELLOGG, Minn. — For Monica Evers, the Winona State University December 2024 student commencement speaker, the address was all about the biggest life lesson she has learned as a dairy farmer: gratitude.

Evers is the daughter of Jerry and Tammy Evers. She is part of Evers Dairy, which milks around 2,600 cows near Kellogg.

Evers, a 4.0 GPA student and the top graduate of her department, earned her degree Dec. 13, 2024, with a double major in mathematics and secondary math education. Evers was a commuter student who took a full course load of 15-20 credits a semester while feeding calves every evening at the family farm.

“Graduation was definitely one of the best days of my entire life,” Evers said. “Just being up there with how much work that I put in I thought, ‘This is finally paying off all of the hours that I spent in school on the farm at the same time.’”

Evers started her speech with congratulations to the graduates before jumping into some of the lessons she has learned on the farm, including discipline and compassion, but most of all — gratitude.

Evers shared some of the things people are often grateful for, such as the people in their life or the opportunities they have received. However, her focus was on encouraging graduates to be grateful to someone they may have forgotten: themselves.

“You are the person that put in all of this work,” Evers said. “You wake up every morning. (You) decide to go to your classes. You decided, ‘I’m going to graduate.’”

Evers said this gratitude perspective stemmed from the dairy farm where work happens every day to feed the world. Throughout her college career, both the dairy farm and college were intertwined.

“If I had a bad day at school, I’d go and do chores because that made me feel better,” Evers said. “If it’s a hard day on the farm the night before I’d go to school and be with my friends. It was a really good balance.”

Evers said her study friends learned to expect that she would go through the homework later in the evening because she was out doing chores.

Being a commuter made making close friends more difficult Evers said, but she found a way.

“I’m outgoing enough, I would say, ‘Hi, I’m Monica. I’m a dairy farmer,’” she said.

At commencement, Evers walked in with faculty and staff and sat on the stage. As she watched her fellow graduates file in, she said she became nervous.

“I thought, ‘Yeah, this is cool for me, but this is their graduation too,’” Evers said.

Evers said her speech was well received.

“I didn’t write my speech to make people cry — not that heartfelt — but just (to be) impactful,” Evers said. “The goal of my speech is for the students to hear something that they would take with them.”

Evers said she first got the idea of being commencement speaker after listening to one of her friends give the speech at graduation last spring. However, when it came time to apply, Evers pushed it off. Applications were due Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, at 11 p.m. Evers turned in her application at 10 p.m. By that Friday she had given her speech before a panel of students and had been chosen as the speaker.

“I’m a big believer in, you miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take — just do it,” Evers said.

Her dairy career goes back long before college. Evers has been continually active on the farm since she was about 12 years old.

“I vividly remember that day I thought, ‘I’m going to feed calves by myself, and I’m going to tell Dad so I can start being a farmer like him,’” Evers said.

From that first time feeding calves, Evers has continued whether it was sitting in the feed bunk checking off ear tag numbers while her family sorted cattle or feeding calves in the facility Evers Dairy built in 2019.

Evers said her first weekend at Winona State University she decided to try spending the weekend away.

“I thought, ‘I can’t be away from the farm,’” Evers said. “Not being with the cows really was not my thing.”

Evers said she continues to want the dairy to be part of her life. She will be substitute teaching through June before pursuing a full-time position. She plans to help on the farm during weekends and summer breaks.