Neubauer currently lives on the family farm homestead, north of the hamlet of Irvine. Her husband is Mark, and they have two adult children: Logan and Evie.

The couple’s farm is mostly dryland acres, although they do have some irrigated acres as well. They grow grains, oilseeds, pulses and hay, as well as forage for their cow-calf operation.

Neubauer grew up on a small family farm near Medicine Hat, where the family had cows and horses and made hay.

“I think the deep roots I have for the industry today developed when I was young,” she said.

When she was a teenager, Neubauer taught riding lessons to young people. She loved watching the children connect with the horses and learn to work with them.

“It’s really empowering, powerful for a child to be on top of a 1,000-pound beast and be in the driver’s seat. I loved that. I realized through the experience that I enjoyed working with children and opening doors for them,” she said.

In 1992, Neubauer had the honour of being the Medicine Hat Stampede Princess.

“That was an amazing experience and helped shape the person I’ve become,” she said.

Neubauer went on to become an ambassador for Medicine Hat. As part of the role, she spent a lot of time going to schools, talking about the role of the Stampede Princess, and answering questions from school children. She also had different opportunities to teach people about rodeo.

“That’s where I cut my teeth talking with folks about something that was really important, and that I was really passionate about, and seeing they had a lot of interest in it as well,” she said.

“This was probably where the seed originally got planted, that has really grown into a real dedication and passion for industry and advocacy and sharing the story and helping people understand a whole lot more about where their food comes from.”

Neubauer said the experience of being the Medicine Hat Stampede Princess solidified her love of working with young people and helped influence her path going forward.

She studied early child education at Medicine Hat College, learned sign language and worked as an interpreter for a deaf child and for children who had delayed speech and language acquisition. Neubauer specialized in working with kids with developmental delays, providing programming and play therapy support. She also helped refer kids to specialists who could help them with their occupational therapy, physical therapy and doctor’s appointments.

“It’s a great, big complicated system. If you have a child with some needs, it can be hard to navigate. My key role, and what I enjoyed most, was providing that navigation and recommendations for families, just to make their journey a little less bumpy,” she said.

Through her work, Neubauer noticed how many kids lived in an overly sanitized world, where they just played with plastic and avoided messy play.

“They didn’t have authentic experiences to connect with plants and animals and the environment. Because of that, they can become more averse to engaging with that,” she said.

Neubauer saw an opportunity to create meaningful purpose for children, offering desensitization to some of the things they were averse to in a natural environment.

“It provided motivation. It was literally magic once we had a chance to bring kids to the farm,” she said.

She had a good friend who was a kindergarten teacher, and they conducted the first class visit to the Neubauer farm. Neubauer set up activities that fit into the kindergarten curriculum about farms and got the children out in a natural environment.

“The kids were delighted because it was real, it was something they knew a little bit of information about, so they could apply prior knowledge. They were free to explore, and they had a great time,” she said.

“It was something that seemed so simple, but was so beneficial.”

After the first visit, Neubauer began to create programming that was appropriate for preschoolers all the way up to Grade 4. All the programming connected back to the curriculum. Full scale farm tours began in 2005, and eventually over 3,000 kids a year visited the farm.

“I reduced my hours at work, so I was able to dedicate more time to this project, and it was so well received by educators in the community that it kind of grew its own legs and took off in so many directions,” she said.

This program became known as the Growing Minds program.

Once the visits became more frequent, Neubauer and her husband did an entire renovation of their farmyard so it was safe and gave a good flow for tours. The farm had pigs, goats, sheep, laying hens and bottle calves.

The program was extremely successful but had to shut down in 2020 because of COVID-19. Over 22,000 children had visited the farm since 2005. During the shutdown, Neubauer took some time to refocus.

Neubauer decided to reach out to Prairie Rose Public Schools Division to create a new kind of programming. In 2021, the Irvine School Agriculture Discovery Centre was created.

The farm is on the playground of Irvine School and is a fully functional farm of about 200×200 feet. The school is a kindergarten to Grade 9 school, with about 400 students who are a mix of urban and rural.

“It’s just become a special place for kids to take their agriculture learning to a whole new level,” she said.

The farm has feeder steers, bottle calves, sheep, goats, hogs and laying hens. There is a vermicomposting system, a large garden, an apiary and a greenhouse.

“It’s a real highlight for the school,” she said. “As a rural school division, we’re always looking to try and maintain our enrollment numbers, and this has proven to bring kids from neighbouring communities to attend the school here. It’s special.”

The farm has a student board of directors, who make and guide decisions that happen on the farm. This board is made up of Grade 9 students, so there are a lot of junior high students that are up and comers learning how to operate the farm as well.

The program runs from April to October, and all the production animals are sold in the fall, so the school doesn’t have to deal with winter farming.

This year, they held a fall festival which was planned by the students and combined a welcome-back barbecue for the families. The event included old-time games like sack races and egg and spoon races, as well as an auction for the production animals. The hogs had already been processed, so the school was able to sell their meat.

“With the tremendous support of rural communities, we raised to date, close to $200,000 for this project. And then working with Prairie Rose, which is an amazing school division, every penny of that turns around and is invested with creating agriculture education opportunities for kiddos across the region,” she said.

Neubauer also created AgPro, a program for students from Grade 7 to 9, and that has been woven into an optional class called Career and Technology Foundations, within the Prairie Rose division.

This class gives students the opportunity to try a sample of real-life jobs. When students sign up for AgPro, they have a six-week block of time where they go out in the community and learn about how an industry works, and what possible job opportunities might exist.

“We’re doing everything we can to get kids thinking about agriculture, because agriculture is a motivation of the heart. And if you don’t have that motivation, you’re not going to stick in this industry for a while,” she said.

One of Neubauer’s goals is to help young people in the industry learn and connect to various aspects of agriculture.

“We have to create a paradigm shift for kids, so that when they think ag, they think differently about it and see that there actually is the spot where they could sit and they don’t have to inherit a township of land to be a farmer. Truly, the supporting careers in this industry are what we need moving forward. That’s going to be the people who can support the technology that continues to be developed. What also is super important is that kids need to develop an understanding of what they’d like to do while they’re still in junior high, so they make sure they take the right courses in high school,” she said.

“Moving forward with intention is probably one of the best things we can do for our kids.”

Neubauer has also served as a board member of the Seven Persons Grazing Association and played a pivotal role in establishing the Medicine Hat and District Chamber of Commerce Education Task Force, where she advocates for policy highlighting the importance of agriculture education. In 2020, Alberta’s agriculture minister appointed her as a founding director of Results Driven Agriculture Research. Neubauer is also a frequently sought after speaker.

The Neubauers have won numerous awards for their farm, and Neubauer has won many awards for her achievements.

Currently, the Neubauers are partnering with Prairie Rose Public Schools to oversee project design and program development for the launch of a program for high school students called the South Alberta School of Agriculture (SASA). SASA will be a premier institution to equip students with knowledge, skills and experience necessary to flourish in an agriculture career and grow the workforce of tomorrow.

Prairie Rose School Division’s board of trustees nominated Neubauer for the Alberta Order of Excellence.

“The application was sent in and then from there, the most amazing part of it was when the Lieutenant Governor phoned, and we actually were so fortunate to host Her Honour and His Honour two years ago at our farm,” she said.

Neubauer said winning the award was incredible.

“It’s the highest honour that you can receive in the province of Alberta, but to receive that from someone who is more than a figurehead, who is an acquaintance and a friend was very meaningful as well,” she said.

Even though she has been awarded Alberta’s top honour, Neubauer is not finished yet.

At the beginning of October, Prairie Rose Schools made the official announcement that they will be constructing the Yuill School of Agriculture, which will equip students with the theory and learning that they need to excel in the agriculture industry. The school is an experiential collegiate that specializes in agriculture to create the workforce that agriculture will need now and in the future.

The Yuill family foundation donated 76 acres of land between the city of Medicine Hat and Dunmore and has provided funding to build the structure. Prairie Rose School Division received funds from Alberta Education to build the campus. Neubauer and her husband are collaborating with everyone else to ensure the programming is relevant to the needs of agriculture. Mark is overseeing the design of the project and construction of the facilities.

“We’re super excited for this region that we’re going to be able to allow for students to learn about agriculture locally, so they can stay in the region and can hopefully continue with careers that will support the future of industry for southeast Alberta. I’m on a journey, and I’m by no means done my work yet,” she said.

The Alberta Order of Excellence was established in 1979 and is the province’s highest honour. There are 229 inductees in the order, and they are selected because of their lifetime contribution to the province.

The post Medicine Hat farmer and agriculture educator named to Alberta’s Order of Excellence appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

That was a main takeaway from a Jan. 17 social media panel discussion at AgDays in Brandon.

The discussion, moderated by Filmore, Sask., grain farmer Sarah Leguee, featured three Canadian farmers with a serious social media game. Social media puts the farmer in touch with a huge audience to promote both the farm and agriculture in general, if they do it right.

Manitoba dairy farmer Amy Smith sees Instagram as her go-to platform and goes by “_that.farming.mama_.” She posts about life in agriculture from a female perspective.

John Kowalchuk is an Alberta grain farmer who prefers X (formerly Twitter) for his posts. He attributes his large following to “bad jokes and sunset pictures featuring farm equipment.”

Andy Pasztor is a farmer from Tillsonburg, Ont. Known for posting squeaky-clean pictures of his (mostly John Deere) farm equipment, he became associated with the hashtag #andyclean on Twitter. He since turned that hashtag into his own brand of soap.

The three panellists agreed that prospective social media users should be fearless and be true to themselves, but Pasztor added a caveat.

“Whatever is pressing you, don’t be afraid to speak it. But also remember, don’t tweet when you’re drunk. There are people who are out there who are watching you, who may impact you in the future.”

Kowalchuk had some sage advice in the form of a pithy aphorism.

“Don’t compare your Monday mornings to someone else’s Saturday nights,” he said, drawing on a hypothetical example to make his point.

“You might see some guy out there where everything’s running smooth on his combine, while I’m out here banging away on my combine, whether the pulley went, or wherever. But you’re comparing one of the tougher times in your life to all this peaches and cream. But it’s not reality.”

Feeling self-conscious is one hurdle often faced when pondering a social media post. The panellists had simple advice.

“Just got to do what’s comfortable for you. Don’t be uncomfortable being yourself on film,” said Pasztor, while acknowledging he still feels a bit silly during the creative process.

“When I make a video, I’ll try to do it when my dad or my brother are not around, because that’s super embarrassing.”

However, at 42, Pasztor sees his embarrassment as a generational thing and points out that younger social media content producers seem to have no problem with it.

“They’re always walking around with a camera, it seems very common now.”

Kowalchuk said the awkwardness eventually goes away.

“Just keep doing it more and more. If you do something enough times, you’ll get better at it and you feel more comfortable.”

Farmers are always thinking about return on investment. And if time is money, many wonder how to turn a social media hobby into something that helps pay the bills.

Smith was recently approached by equipment manufacturer Claas, who asked if they could partner with her to develop content.

“I assume it was because I tagged them in reels throughout the last few years. I like to tag the equipment brands in my posts,” she said.

“They wanted kind of a day in the life of me as a woman in ag, as a dairy farmer and as a mom, during corn silage. So I created a reel for them and a story series. It was a really cool opportunity.”

Pasztor says he didn’t get into social media for the money. It was mainly about making connections. But his Andyclean brand soap did arise from a hashtag, so monetization sort of fell into his lap.

Kowalchuk says he doesn’t think much about monetization. For him, social media remains a hobby.

“I don’t really have much time for that kind of stuff,” he said. “I’ve been asked a few times, and I always just say, ‘if you want me to use your product, I take hoodies and trips to farm shows.’”

Of course, there’s the negative side of social media: the trolls. All panellists had some experience with trolls, especially the two who prefer X, which is known for being a somewhat combative platform.

Kowalchuk advises X users to always take the high road.

“You get it every once in a while, for sure. If you choose to respond, try to be positive. So if someone was looking from the outside and they would say, ‘OK, this guy’s making sense.’”

Pasztor said it’s important to put things into perspective when someone attacks on social media.

“It’s really easy to get really mad at a comment, but ask yourself what kind of person is going to take their time to put you down? Just don’t worry about people coming in and saying things. They’re probably living in their basement of their parents’ house.”

The post Upping the farm’s social media game appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

She lives on a farm near the Peace country town of Fairview and has made it a personal goal to get automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in every school in the province – particularly those in rural areas.

She wants to saturate Alberta and eventually the country with information on how to use them properly.

*“(Students) should be getting training and doing drills from the very earliest stages of elementary school all the way through school,” said Ruether, who runs the Project Brock Society, named in tribute to her 16-year-old son who, in 2012, died from heart disease in the middle of a school volleyball practice even though an AED was available but was not used.

She believes the odds of any kind of heart failure, including those among kids and teens, are too high to ignore the basic life support skills necessary to keep a victim alive until EMS arrives. The risks can be particularly high on farms and in rural communities.

“There’s been so many tragic accidents on farms,” said Ruether. “What if Grandpa became unconscious while he was, say, unloading the back of the grain truck?”

Brock was felled by a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), which is not the same as a heart attack, although the terms tend to be used interchangeably.

According to the American Heart Association, sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the heart malfunctions and suddenly stops beating. Because it’s essentially an electrical problem based in the heart, it can affect anyone — even healthy, athletic kids and teenagers like Brock.

Although Canadian data is limited, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia says SCA claims the lives of more than 2,000 children and adolescents in the U.S. annually and accounts for approximately three to five per cent of all deaths in children ages 5 to 19 years.

“(SCA death in children) happens sporadically across the country: a death here, a death there that nobody really hears about,” said Ruether. She serves as a patient/family advocate on the Alberta Health Services EMS Science and Research Team, which is collecting cardiac arrest data in the province.

There’s a story behind every case. In Ruether’s case, Brock’s death is tinged with bittersweet memories.

“It was the Tuesday after the May long weekend and all of the kids were home,” she said.

“My two boys were there and the girls were home from college. We had a fantastic weekend. We went biking, dirt biking, and planted the garden.” 

Ruether treasures that particular Monday because the next day couldn’t have been more different.

After school that day Brock asked his mom — worn out from work and weekend activity — if he could play the World of Warcraft online game with his friends. She responded by pointing out his lack of dedication to his math grades and forbidding his gaming plans.

Then Brock offered another idea.

“He was upset because I was mad at him and he said ‘well mom, would you like to come along (to volleyball practice)?’ I said no and said ‘if you don’t get your math marks up this will be the last practice you go to.’” 

Those were among the last words she ever spoke to him and she’s regretted it ever since.

“I don’t know why I was such a (expletive) that day. I was just so grumpy and tired and miserable.”

Brock left for volleyball at about 6:50 p.m. At 7:25, Ruether received a distressing phone call. Brock had collapsed face-down and appeared to be breathing abnormally.

“His friends just thought he was joking around. One of his friends turned him over and tickled him and was just kind of joking around when they noticed that he was turning blue. And so they called 911.”

Although the AED was brought out, it wasn’t used because trained individuals, including EMS when they arrived, administered CPR to Brock.

Ruether believes Brock’s death could have been prevented if someone had used the AED as soon as he collapsed.

Those present likely didn’t know that Brock’s apparent abnormal breaths were actually agonal respirations. According to Web MD, agonal respirations happen when the brain is not getting the oxygen it needs to survive. It’s usually associated with cardiac arrest or stroke and demands the immediate use of a defibrillator.

“There’s an extremely high chance of survival if you’re shocked right away,” said Ruether.

“None of them were really informed about how critically important it is to apply an AED. And so it just sat there on the floor beside him while he died.” 

Ruether holds no ill will toward those who did their best to prevent Brock’s death — especially since discovering the rarity of comprehensive AED training even among those with basic life support experience.

She admitted she probably wouldn’t have recognized Brock’s symptoms as agonal respirations herself, despite being highly trained in CPR and employed in a medical career, in her case diagnostic medical imaging.

“I didn’t know about agonal respirations. The 911 dispatcher didn’t know, so there were a lot of people who were just not informed about what they were supposed to do.”

Ruether didn’t know it at the time, but there was earlier evidence that Brock had heart problems that may have been ignored due to his age.

Brock had attended a drug and alcohol awareness program where he was twice hooked up to an ECG. Both instances resulted in an abnormal reading.

“They said there’s something wrong with the machine, ripped off the tracing and gave it to him. But I didn’t know that until a year after he was dead. Brock just went home and put that abnormal ECG in his little box of treasures and never said anything about it. So he had an arrhythmia that we knew nothing about.”

The experience taught Ruether that defibrillators and knowledge of how to use them were not as common as she thought. Using donations and a small group of volunteers, she set out to remedy that situation in Alberta’s six school areas.

“We put AEDs in all schools in the north area as well as at least one in every other area across the province,” she said.

“We have an Excel spreadsheet that we are working on to find all the schools in the province that have or do not have AEDs so that we can target AED placement in the remaining schools that don’t have any.”

As successful as Project Brock has been, Ruether said she needs help from the provincial government to ensure that AEDs are put in every school in Alberta. And she doesn’t intend to stop there.

“We need to have a commitment from the legislators that AEDs are mandatory in every school,” she said.

“Throughout the years we’ve trained thousands of students and teachers and citizens and health care providers, but it’s got to the point now where this is bigger than just a little project.

“I’m trying to find an administrator right now to take over the reins of the administrative duties and then help build it into a provincial and then national organization so that we can get this training throughout Canada.”

In the meantime, anyone interested in volunteering or donating to the Project Brock Society or learning what Ruether and company can do for a local school, school district, community centre or other facility, is encouraged to contact her at kimruether@hotmail.com or 780-835-1751.

*Update: the year of Brock’s death was updated. The Alberta Farmer apologizes for the error.

The post Peace country resident turns tragedy into triumph with AEDs in schools appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Luke Silinski, 17, grew up and lives on a farm in the Beiseker area. He has a passion for agriculture technology and wants to share it.

Since 2021, Silinski has been distributing agricultural boxes that he calls “content packs.” The boxes are part of his non-profit company, Ag Tech STEAM. (STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, art and math.) Each box contains an activity for each letter in STEAM.

“I would describe Ag Tech STEAM as a program or system that is dedicated to bringing agriculture technology and education to rural and under-served kids,” said Silinski, who loves computer programming and agriculture.

The idea arose in 2018, when Silinski attended the Emerging Agriculture Hackathon, a University of Saskatchewan event that unites innovators and entrepreneurs. He pitched a set of free, online courses intended to educate youths interested in ag tech. His idea won the event’s MacGyver Award for the most creative solution to an agricultural problem.

“It evolved when we contacted our friends at Farm Credit Canada and they were interested and invested in the project and they gave us a budget to get started,” he said.

Silinski describes himself as Ag Tech STEAM founder and “head of play,” and is adamant that the boxes remain free.

“They cost about $110 in total, but I give them away completely for free,” he said. He has numerous sponsors including Olds College, Nutrien and Lethbridge College. His parents, Shanyn and Earl, who are grain farmers, are champions of the project and help him out.

RELATED: Young and passionate: Why these ranchers are taking a seat at the table

Silinski has created four different boxes: good bugs; bad bugs; plant health; and soil health. Each box can be adapted for students from kindergarten to post-secondary. Adults like them too, he said.

“They all contain activities based around agriculture, like agronomy, entomology, forages, seed treatment using worm castings and germination testing. All smaller stuff that farmers would do in the field normally.”

He said he was inspired to start the project because he couldn’t find good agriculture education.

“I didn’t know agriculture was the third most advancing field behind heavy construction and aerospace. I didn’t know there were strides being made in autonomous tractors and robots, for example. This was never communicated until around four or five years ago, at this point.

“Kids may have an interest in technology but might not be able to (take) it farther because of their current situation, or just not knowing that there is a field for them.”

Silinski started making the boxes in 2021 and to date has sent about 70. He’s given presentations, put info on social media and attended events to promote the project.

“A lot of it is personal one on one interactions. Sometimes I sell my Ag Tech STEAM idea to people when we are having a conversation about something completely different and my Ag Tech STEAM comes up and I tell them about it. That gets the word of mouth out.”

Silinski is also a Lego pro, and his skills with Lego get people interested in the boxes.

“They come for the Lego and they stay for the Ag Tech STEAM ideas,” he said.

The boxes have gone over well in schools.

“We find teachers and the principals are the most interested. There isn’t a lot of room for us to make an impact with the superintendents of school divisions, but where we find the most success for schools is teachers and principals and students recommending the boxes to the teachers in the schools,” he said.

Most of the boxes have been sent within Alberta, but “we’re hoping to expand not only in Canada, but internationally as well. We’ve had interest from the United States, from some places in Europe and Africa too.”

Silinski has downloadable content on his website, including a colouring book. He also has plans to create add-on boxes.

For more information, or to get a content pack, see agtechsteam.ca.

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For information on booking the trailer, visit knowyourfoodab.ca/bookings.

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