Marcia Lightsey is a cattle rancher, mother, grandmother, and tireless advocate for all things agriculture and conservation in the state of Florida. Described by her daughter, Leigh Ann Wynn, as “one of the most selfless people” she knows, and by Carole McKenzie, Polk County Farm Bureau Executive Director as a “get things done person,” Lightsey is a true leader among her peers.
Although Lightsey is now the proud matriarch of an eighth-generation family of Florida ranchers, she herself did not grow up in agriculture.
“My father was in the Air Force,” she explains. In 1962, he was stationed in Tampa at MacDill Air Force Base. There, she attended Brandon High School, where she met her future husband, Cary Lightsey, a sixth-generation Florida cattle rancher…