2019 Awardees
Rachel Hopkins
Rachel owns a large 300+ cow/calf operation in the Huzzah Valley in Crawford County, Missouri. In the past few years she has renovated her pastures, installed fencing and watering systems to support her passion of grazing cattle through management intensive grazing. Having a farm alongside the Huzzah river has many challenges, such as controlling erosion on the streambank. Rachel has addressed this issue in cooperation with The Nature Conservancy. With this partnership, a new procedure to stabilize the banks has been installed on approximately 1000 feet of the river. She hosts groups; and specifically women’s groups, to tour this technique and teach the successes that she has had.
Rachel has a master’s degree in Agriculture and is currently serves as Ag Business Specialist for the University of Missouri Extension Service. She serves Crawford, Dent, Jefferson, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve, Washington counties in Missouri. She provides instruction at several Missouri Management Intensive Grazing schools. In March 2018, she held three classes specifically for women managing cattle. She educated 50 women cattle producers on Costs of Production, Marketing and Production Aspects.
Rachel is married and has a 2-year-old little girl who is her constant companion on the farm. Learning from her mother that women can and do make a great impact on conservation and agriculture.
Rhonda Holliday
Rhonda has been a member of WiN since 2014. Shortly after joining she volunteered to serve as Regional Representative for the Southeast Region even though she was a Midwest member. This was in the beginning years of WiN and the membership was slim. During this time finding a member that was willing to put in this time to be the Regional Representative was difficult. Rhonda did not hesitate to lead in this capacity. When WiN realigned the Regions, Rhonda was displaced from her volunteer position. But that did not stop her from volunteering. She reached out to contact the WiN Vice President and said, if you need me to do anything with WiN please call, I am available to help. Six months later Rhonda was asked to lead the Coordination of the 2019 Joint Employees Association Training to be held in Spokane, WA. Without hesitation Rhonda said yes.
For over a year now Rhonda has worked nights, weekends and even in her sleep to lead 5 employee organizations WiN, APIO, NOPHNRCSE, AIANEA, Equality USDA in a path to this event. Rhonda selflessly continues to do the following; Coordinating efforts with 5 Presidents, Recruiting volunteers, Preparing paperwork that was submitted to the new FPAC organization, and Obtaining Grants to fund the event. So many facets of the event that needed to be addressed, Rhonda has done it without hesitation. To date, the event has a record number of individuals has signed up to attend.
I cannot think of anyone in the WiN organization more deserving of the Award of Excellence then Rhonda Holliday. She is an inspiration to all WiN members.