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Stevens, Schilmiller nab 2018 Purdue Women in Ag honors
 

By ANN HINCH

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — There was a time when half the country’s population didn’t have as much hope of finding leadership roles in agriculture, despite putting in a fair percentage of the work on farms. Those days are rapidly dissipating, partly thanks to more women taking charge – and being recognized for their contributions to the ag’s advancement.

“It’s really important to celebrate role models,” said Dr. Karen Plaut, Purdue University’s first woman to serve as dean of the College of Agriculture, this month as she introduced the two newest women to join the ranks of annual Purdue Extension Women in Agriculture winners.

Many years ago, Jamie Schilmiller worked as an electrical designer, but quit to be a stay-at-home mother while her husband farmed. She didn’t grow up on a farm, but her father used to be a horticulture teacher so she knew how to instruct and she did have an appreciation of growing things.

“I don’t know if I have a title” on the family farm, Schilmiller reflected, saying she drives the tractor and helps out elsewhere as needed. “I am a good gofer.”

“Gofer” hardly seems adequate to cover her role in Floyd County agriculture. The second-smallest county in Indiana, she said there’s not much farming there and so there was no real ag education. About 12 years ago, when she was leading a fourth-grade school tour on a farm, in fact, she talked about how a child mistook a cow for a buffalo – and so the kids around him did too, until she corrected them.

That wasn’t the only time. “It seemed like every year you got questions that were ridiculous,” she said, “but being kids, they were honest” in their mistakes – and teachable.

This mother of three works with county Farm Bureau and Ag in the Classroom efforts in which she and other adults help kids and teachers learn more about the industry. She also works with the extension office on local 4-H efforts (which are sparse right now), and has helped secure more than $20,000 in grants to fund “My Little Farm” at the county fair, which teaches visitors of all ages about agriculture.

On top of all that, she and her husband, Tom, are launching a new seed, fertilizer and chemical business on Jan. 1, 2019, Homestead Ag Supply. She has sought training and certifications toward beginning the venture and is working on the website now.

“We’re trying to build it back,” Schilmiller said of her and others’ efforts to raise the profile of agriculture once again in Floyd County – and it’s working. Local government is becoming interested in the efforts of Farm Bureau, too. The lesson, she said, is “you don’t have to be a farmer to know things and to teach things.”

Nearly 60 years ago, Plaut said women made up less than 5 percent of students pursuing degrees in the Purdue College of Agriculture; now they are the majority, at 59 percent. One of those graduates is Jane Ade Stevens, now CEO of the Indiana Corn/Soybean organizations.

Stevens wasn’t able to make it to the award presentation at the Indiana State Fair, but Indiana Soy Director of Education and Training Hannah Vorsilak accepted and read a few of Stevens’ remarks on her behalf. Stevens wrote, “I got into agriculture only because my dad thought I should go into home economics,” and told her women just didn’t get ag degrees.

She stuck with Home Ec for a year, even going so far as to “share” her classroom wisdom with her mother on visits home from Purdue on how she was cooking wrong. After that, Stevens changed her major to agriculture – and was far happier.

Vorsilak said the advice Stevens gives girls and women in ag is twofold: “Follow your passion; and don’t tell your mother how to boil her eggs.”

Stevens moved into the CEO role at Indiana Corn/Soy in 2010, before which she was its senior director of programming. Under her leadership the past eight years, it has undertaken several initiatives, such as building The Glass Barn on the state fairgrounds for public ag education, among others.

Before that, she and her husband, Roger, had their own public relations firm focused on agriculture. She has also worked for Indiana Farm Bureau, Elanco and the USDA.

11/15/2018