members. One third of county board members have been president of their county board

 while less then ten percent have been on the FFBF board. County board members are

 more active in other agricultural organizations and also business, community and civic

 organizations. Both active and county board members have approximately the same

 mean age of 50 years. A greater number of county board members belonged to 4-H,

 FFA, and have participated in other leadership development programs. County board

 members have a greater average farm size then do active members and less work off

 farm.

 Objective Two
 Identify Perceived Leadership Roles of County Farm Bureau Leaders by the State
 Farm Bureau Leadership

 State leadership of the Florida Farm Bureau Federation were given a researcher-

 developed qualitative interview questionnaire (Appendix C) in order to determine their

 expectations of county Farm Bureau board members and county Farm Bureau boards.

 From their responses, a list of 100 competencies in four theme areas was developed, and

 after pilot testing, 66 competencies remained and composed the instrument that was

 given to county board members. Competencies were eliminated if they were repetitive,

 confusing, or were not statistically significant.

 The responses from the long interviews underwent content analysis and four

major theme areas emerged from the analysis of the interview transcripts and audiotapes.

These areas were: leadership, political process, effective boards, and knowledge of Farm

Bureau. These were all areas that the state leadership determined county Farm Bureau

board members should possess skills in. Questions on the interview questionnaire were

not separated into these four areas, but the responses given by interview participants were