Woman in Agriculture Award

Submitted by Doreen Fitzgerald
Phone: 474-5042
11/25/03

Jeanne Havemeister of Palmer received the 2003 Alaska Woman in Agriculture Award Nov. 14 during the annual Alaska Agricultural Symposium in Anchorage. Havemeister, who with her husband Bob runs one of the state’s top producing dairy herds, has been active in farming in Alaska since 1961. In that year, she came to Alaska from Wisconsin to visit her missionary parents, met and married Bob Havemeister, and joined him on his family’s farm near Palmer.

The award, which recognizes women’s outstanding contributions to agriculture, is presented annually by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

"Jeanne, who’s been a diligent farmer over the years, still spends time on the tractor and in the milk barn," said Milan Shipka, professor of animal science and extension livestock specialist at UAF. "She has long interacted with the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, Cooperative Extension Service, and university faculty to understand and implement the best current agriculture and animal husbandry practices to develop the farm and dairy herd."

Bob’s parents. Arnold and Emmy Havemeister, arrived in the Mat-Su Valley in May, 1935, one of 200 colony families selected by the federal government to settle and farm there during the Depression. Today, the farm covers over 200 acres owned and leased, and the Havemeisters milk about half of their 150 or so cows. Each one produces about 22,000 pounds of milk a year, for a total annual production of 2.2 million pounds.

Production and herd data is tracked by computer. They artificially inseminate their cows had have raised all of their herd on the farm. "Jeanne reminds me very much of my aunts in central Wisconsin who were the mainstay of the dairy farms run by my dad’s brothers and sisters, " said Carol Lewis, dean of the school and director of the experiment station. "She also reminds me of my cousins’ wives who continued the tradition--women who are incredible farmers, managers, caretakers, and ladies."

Havemeister has also contributed her time and effort to schools and youth activities and her church, and has served the community as a committee member for the Farm Service Agency and a member of the borough election board. The Havemeisters were twice named Alaska’s farm family of the year, in 1973 and 2002.

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