Pizza, positivity and passion were the order of the night at Little Guys Pizza on Thursday 5th of September.
Thirteen young women involved in Agriculture in a variety of roles spoke to a packed audience about their agricultural careers thus far.
The night started off with guest speaker Kate Maddern, who has a long list of accolades; Kaniva born and bred, Bachelor of Science Advanced – Global Challenges (Honours) degree, Monash University, Birchip Cropping Group Research Officer and Rhodes Scholarship, Oxford University.
Kate said she started off her career in Ag on her family farm and drove mum and dad crazy by asking “Why? Coz?” from the time she could talk. As she got older she progressed into helping in the shearing shed, wool classing and all other jobs farm related. Kate’s passion for farming grew and she studied at Monash, chose a career with Birchip Cropping Group and then applied for a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University. She said she “passed the application stage and went into the interview stage with no pressure, not even dreaming that a kid from Kaniva would ever get a scholarship”. She was utterly surprised when she was notified that her application was successful. She thinks that “being someone who spent most of her days driving a tractor turned out to be a bonus – a refreshing difference that made her stand out from the doctors and lawyers”. Kate was even complimented, or what she believed was a compliment, on her “authentic country accent.”
At the conclusion of Kate’s speech she invited a panel of four young women (Patricia Rideout, Rebekah Reichenbach, Sinead).
After a short break it was panel number two’s turn; Chayle Goodwin, Rommi Crouch, Jessica Day and Melody Maddern. Chayle went to Longrenong and now works on the family farm, she is hand rearing up to 120 lambs and has invested in an automatic feeder. Rommi works with her father and brothers on the farm and says that communication is the key to a good working and family relationship. Rommi is responsible for the sheep side of the operation. Jess said she came from a long line of medical professionals and thought this was the path she was going to take, but, had a gap year and came to Telopea to work for McBrides. She has since been to the Kimberly and Pilbara working on a cattle station and has just recently come back to work for Hannaton Merinos. Mel Maddern started off working for Westech Ag as the merchandise, fertiliser and front of house manager. With the restructure of Westech she is now a business partner.
Panel number three consisted of Diana Wheaton, Tiarnee Vivian, Sophie Bennet and Lucy Mulraney. Diana studied at Marcus Oldham College, works on the farm with her family and is breeding her own stud sheep. Diana says the most rewarding thing for her is watching her stud develop as she analyses how to breed the best sheep she can. Tiarnee owns a beauty business in Kaniva and works on the family farm, two very different careers, but she finds that this gives her an interest outside farming and is good for work/life balance. Sophie works with her mother Allison to organise the sheep side of the mixed farming family business and says it is easy to forget to take time off as there is always something to do on the farm. Lucy was the youngest of the group, is midway through high school and has been breeding her own rams for three years. Lucy was inspired by her uncle and her father, she thinks she might go to University, but it sounds like it would be hard for her to leave her rams.
This is just a snippet of what the young women had to say and each story told was unique, interesting and inspiring in their own way.
LINK Neighbourhood House would like to Little Guys Pizza for hosting, Kate Maddern for her motivating speech and terrific job as MC, the impressive young ladies that came and told their stories and the Kaniva and wider community for turning out in force to support the women and the event.
This article appeared in the Nhill Free Press & Kaniva Times, 11 September 2024.
