The award is something Farm Bureau insurance agent Sam Sones strives his best to reach every year. This year he reached it for the fifth time. It’s the Mississippi Agent of the Year.

“It’s kind of a pinnacle for me,” the Brookhaven native said. “I know if I’m qualifying for that, it means I’m writing a lot of policies or have a lot of production, but it’s also a measurement for me in how I’m taking care of my clients. You’re growing your business but it also means I’m involved in the trenches level with my business. It’s what you’ve got to do.”

Sones won the award for the first time in 2014 in a one-time occurrence — a tie with another agent.

“A guy I really look up to,” he said. “I’d only been in the company five or six years at that point.”

Repeating the same production each year is not going to win the award again for the same person, Sones said.

“The bar is getting raised every year. This area of Mississippi, below I-20, especially with Farm Bureau, just has a lot of good agents,” Sones said. “We’re all in the same District (District 3) with Farm Bureau and we all know each other very well. Some veteran agents are stepping up that I compete with, but also some up-and-coming new agents that I’m very impressed with that are killing it in the business.”

Some of those agents share Brookhaven office space with Sones, he said, and are all very good in their individual ways.

Though production may need to change, the attitude and commitment to his clients will be consistent.

“There’s not a whole lot I would do different. Each and every day, we compete from a healthy standpoint and push and encourage each other every day,” he said. “The level it takes to do those kind of things every year is tough because there are a lot of people who are doing their job well.”

Although Agent of the Year is impressive, it’s not the award Sones is happiest about. That award would be Agency of the Year, which his agency has won for the second year in a row in the large agency category.

“It’s the greatest award we got. If you’re winning that, it means every guy in our office, including myself, is striving to take care of our clients. That’s probably what I’m most proud of. It’s cool to enjoy that with the rest of the guys.”

Sones said nearly 3,000 agents make the Top-10 category of agents for the Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company each year, and two or three are consistently from the Brookhaven office.

“Our office is firing on a lot of cylinders right now,” he said.

But above knowing and performing their jobs well, Sones knows whatever blessings they have received are not the result of his own abilities.

“No matter if you’re working for any corporation or company, if you have achievement it’s the Lord giving you favor,” he said. “The Lord gives us favor with our clients and with people we don’t yet do business with.”