Maroon/Texas A&M Foundation
Brooke Rollins is likely going back to Washington to work in a second Trump administration.
A favorite son and a beloved daughter of Glen Rose have risen to prominence as newsmakers in 2024, capturing the attention of a nationwide audience.
Actually, it’s January that is setting up to be a big month for Dan Campbell and Brooke Rollins, who in the late 1980s and early 1990s both cut their teeth in the Whiskey Woods Capital of Texas, the town of 2,950 located 55 miles southwest of Fort Worth. It got the moniker as a hub for the moonshine business, at the time a very highly popular, well, agricultural product.
Campbell, Detroit Lions head coach who graduated from Glen Rose High School in 1994, has his team positioned as the frontrunner to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. The Lions are 10-1, lead the NFC North Division, and appear the team to beat in the conference. Campbell was “Daniel” in those days.
And more recently, it was Brooke Rollins, Glen Rose Class of 1990, who announced she was moving to Washington, D.C., to accept the role of Secretary of Agriculture and head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the second administration of Donald Trump, elected earlier this month as the 47th president.
Pending approval of her appointment by the U.S. Senate, per provisions set forth in the Constitution, of course.
Rollins, her husband Mark, and their children reside in Fort Worth.
We put our heads together earlier this afternoon — we’re not talking here about the Salk Institute or a gathering at Voltaire’s place — to think about every Fort Worth resident to ever serve as a cabinet head in a presidential administration, and we think she’s it. (If you’ve got the historical goods, let us know.)
Pete Geren and Gordon England served in presidential administrations as Secretary of the Army and Secretary of the Navy under George W. Bush. England, the former General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin executive, also served as Deputy Secretary of Defense under Bush.
But as a cabinet head, we think Rollins is the first.
We had kept hearing whispers leading up to the election that Rollins might be tapped as chief of staff of a second Trump administration. That job ultimately went to Susie Wiles, the presidential campaign’s co-chair.
Turns out it was agriculture.
“Thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to serve as the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture,” Rollins said on X on Saturday. “It will be the honor of my life to fight for America’s farmers and our Nation’s agricultural communities. This is big stuff for a small-town ag girl from Glen Rose, TX — truly the American Dream at its greatest. WHO’S READY TO MAKE AGRICULTURE GREAT AGAIN?”
If it’s not the heat, it’s the deep snow, Will Rogers once said of the plight of the farmer. If it’s not the drought, it’s a flood. If it’s not the boll weevil, it’s the tariff. The tariff, keep an eye on the tariff, over the next four years.
If confirmed by the Senate, Rollins would succeed Tom Vilsack of Iowa, the Secretary of Agriculture in the past two Democratic administrations.
The USDA oversees the nation’s farming, forestry, ranching, food quality and nutrition. The agency has a dual purpose of promoting and regulating agriculture practice and products. The agency oversees multiple support programs for farmers; animal and plant health; and the safety of meat, poultry, and eggs that anchor the nation’s food supply.
Its federal nutrition programs provide food to low-income people, pregnant women, and young children. And the department sets standards for school meals.
The farmer appears to have a friend in Rollins, who was a member of the FFA and Four H clubs in Glen Rose. Rollins would become the first Secretary of Agriculture in U.S. history to have served as a state officer in the FFA, a leading educational group focused on developing leadership, personal growth, and career success through agricultural education. The Texas FFA was founded in 1929. The first meeting was a Texas A&M.
Rollins attended Ag U in College Station, earning a degree from Texas A&M in agricultural development. While there she was elected the first woman to serve as Student Body president at the university.
"We congratulate Brooke Rollins on her nomination to be Secretary of Agriculture,” said Zippy Duvall, American Farm Bureau Federation president, in a statement. “We're pleased she has a good relationship with our state Farm Bureau in Texas and hope to build on it if she's confirmed by the Senate. We're encouraged by her statement that she'd ‘fight for America’s farmers and our nation’s agricultural communities.’ Effective leadership at USDA is more important than ever as farmers and ranchers face a struggling agricultural economy."
Rollins, who went on to earn a law degree at Texas, will be serving a second time with Trump.
In 2018, Rollins was tapped to run the White House’s Office of American Innovation and ultimately the Domestic Policy Council. After leaving the White House, she founded the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit research institute and Trump-aligned think tank.
Coming out of Texas law school, Rollins served as Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s policy director. She later led the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a political policy think tank, growing the fledgling organization to influence.
In 2011, Texas Monthly took notice of her rise, naming Rollins as one of the state’s 25 most powerful Texans.
Two years ago, Rollins told Maroon, a publication of the Texas A&M Foundation: “Every day, I am motivated by the opportunity to help more people achieve the American dream. It often takes years of labor in the public policy trenches to see change come to fruition, but it’s worth it to see people’s lives change for the better.”
Meanwhile, what is it that they’re putting in the water in Glen Rose?
