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CapitalPress.com
Friday, July 1, 2022
Women in Ag
Key part of the team
By CRAIG REED
For the Capital Press
SILVER LAKE, Ore. —
Cassie Pierson grew up help-
ing on her family’s Christ-
mas tree farm and admits the
work wasn’t always easy.
That led to her not having
the fondest memories about
that activity and agriculture
in general.
“I swore I would never
marry a farmer, and then I
did,” she said.
Since marrying Scott
Pierson in 1996 after the two
met while students at East-
ern Oregon University in
La Grande, Cassie has been
a full-time farm and ranch
wife and mother. She has
moved handline irrigation
pipes and driven a swather
and a tractor pulling a baler
in hay fi elds.
When the couple’s two
children, Jubal and Ella,
were old enough, she helped
them with their 4-H lambs.
Cassie Pierson, now 46,
has no regrets about the life-
style she married into. She
Cassie Pierson
Craig Reed/ For the Capital Press
Cassie Pierson says she has no regrets about the farm
lifestyle she married into. She and her husband, Scott,
own Pierson Agricultural Enterprises, a hay business
based in the Silver Lake, Ore., area.
and Scott own Pierson Agri-
cultural Enterprises, a hay
business based in the Silver
Lake area.
“I loved him,” Cassie said
of Scott. “I believed we could
make it work, even though I
didn’t particularly like farm-
ing. I’ve grown into it (agri-
cultural lifestyle), defi nitely.
It’s been a wonderful way to
raise our children.
“One of the funniest
things for me is that I have
ended up learning far more
about how agriculture works
through conversation and
hands-on work than any-
thing I learned in college,”
she added. “We go to confer-
ences and ag programs and I
can hold conversations with
people. They ask me where I
got my ag degree and I say,
‘I didn’t. I married a grass
nerd.’”
Family is all about pickles
By CRAIG REED
For the Capital Press
NOTI, Ore. — Holly and
Matt Kurzhal have turned
their desire to live and to
raise their children in a rural
setting into a business.
The
family
grows
cucumbers and turns them
into pickles. The entrepre-
neurial venture that became
Kurzhal Family Kickin’
Pickles is now in its 11th
year on the family’s prop-
erty in the Noti area north-
west of Eugene, Ore.
“We always wanted to
live out in the country, to
have chickens and a gar-
den, but this has grown into
a lot more responsibility,”
Holly Kurzhal said.
If only Grandma Jean
Kurzhal was around to see
the success that started with
her garlic dill pickle recipe.
In the beginning, Jean’s
son Mark took over the
pickle canning.
Then Matt and Holly
continued the tradition.
They used a combination
of Jean’s and Mark’s rec-
ipes and stuff ed 60 quart
jars with “kickin’ pickles,”
Holly Kurzhal
Craig Reed/For the Capital Press
Holly Kurzhal says that the growth of the Kurzhal
Family Kickin’ Pickle business has helped her become
more outgoing. The business, now in its 11th year,
specializes in making pickles, but has also expanded
into other products such as the Bloody Mary mix that
Kurzhal is holding.
so named because jalapeno
and red chili fl akes are
ingredients.
Friends loved the fl avor
and texture and encour-
aged the couple to go
into business and sell the
pickles.
In 2011, 250 quart jars
of pickles were canned,
and all of them sold at
the Veneta Farmers Mar-
ket before Christmas. The
couple decided it was time
to turn their passion into a
business. They attended the
acidifi ed foods class at Ore-
gon State University and
began fi lling out the USDA
and Oregon Department of
Agriculture paperwork to
establish the business.
Celebrating hop history
By GAIL OBERST
For the Capital Press
INDEPENDENCE, Ore.
— It’s fi tting that Natascha
Adams, a former hop farm
worker, has been enlisted
to manage Independence’s
revised Heritage Museum.
The new museum build-
ing at the corner of Sec-
ond and C streets opened
in April, replacing the old
museum established in 1976
a few blocks away.
Both featured the city’s
hop and agriculture his-
tory, which is what brought
Adams to Independence, the
self-proclaimed Hop Capital
of the World.
In 2011, Adams went to
work for a hop farm, immers-
ing herself in hops and living
on the farm.
“That was where my love
for hop history was born,
and grew,” she said. “I loved
working on a hop farm.
Drinking beer with the farm-
ers, you learn a lot, fast.”
Natascha Adams
Gail Oberst/For the Capital Press
Natascha Adams talks about the diversity of hop
workers featured in displays at the new Heritage Mu-
seum, which she manages.
In the 11 years since,
she’s remained in Indepen-
dence. When the job came
up to set up and manage the
new city museum, Adams
jumped at it.
Adams’ broad look at
Independence’s
history
refl ects her education and
her personal background.
Unlike the old museum the
new one displays the import-
ant part immigrants played in
building the hop industry. An
immigrant herself, born in
Germany to British parents,
Adams became a U.S. citi-
zen fi ve years ago. Adams
fi nally tired of renewing her
green card since she had
moved to the U.S. with her
family at nine years old. “I
wanted to be able to vote,”
she said.
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Working to breed a better blueberry
By BRENNA WIEGAND
For the Capital Press
SILVERTON, Ore. —
Growing up in Southern Ore-
gon, Brooke Getty wasn’t
involved in agriculture but
developed a strong apprecia-
tion for the impressive fruits,
vegetables and livestock
grown in the region.
In March Getty accepted
a position as assistant plant
breeder at Oregon Blueberry
Farms & Nursery near Sil-
verton, Ore., which produces
nursery stock, farms blue-
berries and conducts its own
breeding program.
Getty assists head breeder
Adam Wagner in all aspects
of fi eld, lab and greenhouse
experimentation in support
of the blueberry breeding
program.
“…And yes, I eat a lot of
blueberries,” she said.
“I’ve always had a strong
affi nity toward plants vs. ani-
mals so when I started my
associate degree at Lane
Brooke Getty
Brenna Wiegand/For the Capital Press
Brooke Getty serves as the assistant plant breeder for
Oregon Blueberry Farms & Nursery. Its genetics pro-
gram focuses on developing new blueberry cultivars for
fruit quality, fl avor and aroma.
Community College, I was
excited to take my fi rst botany
class,” Getty said. “I started
volunteering at community
gardens, completed the mas-
ter gardener program and got
a job at Gray’s Garden Center
in Eugene. These experiences
were early resume builders
and helped me fi gure out the
area of agriculture that would
be the best fi t for me.”
From Lane Community
College, Getty transferred
directly into the horticulture
program at Oregon State Uni-
versity and earned a bache-
lor’s degree in horticulture.
Early on, she got a job with
Oregon State’s aroma hops
breeding program working
for Shaun Townsend.
An advocate for agriculture
By CRAIG REED
For the Capital Press
ROSEBURG, Ore. —
Elin Miller is an advocate for
agriculture.
She likes working in the
hazelnut orchard, the wine-
grape vineyard and her large
garden, but she spends just
as many hours, if not more,
speaking up in support of the
agricultural community and
industry.
“We need to educate peo-
ple about what agriculture
needs in order to produce
food for the world,” Miller
said. “We need to spend time
with people who have diff er-
ent opinions than we do. We
need to provide them with
some context on why we are
approaching things the way
we are in agriculture. It needs
to come from us.”
She and her husband,
Bill Miller, are owners of
Umpqua Nut Farm, a 38-acre
Elin Miller
Craig Reed/For the Capital Press
Elin Miller is a partner in Umpqua Vineyards, a 60-acre
vineyard in the Umpqua, Ore., area and is the chairper-
son for the Oregon Wine Council. She’s been an advo-
cate for agriculture since her high school days in Arizo-
na as a FFA student.
hazelnut orchard, and are
partners in Umpqua Vine-
yards, a 60-acre vineyard of
mostly Pinot noir grapes.
While the couple spend
time together on those prop-
erties, Bill Miller is sup-
portive of the time his wife
spends on commissions,
boards and committees rep-
resenting agriculture.
“I am so glad and proud
that she is doing what she
is doing for the ag indus-
try,” he said. “It’s something
I wouldn’t have the capacity
to do so I’m so proud she can
do it and will do it.”
Mobile butchering business a family aff air
By HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
For the Capital Press
HOMEDALE, Idaho —
Kortney Bahem and her hus-
band, Daniel Lousignont,
own and operate L&L
Meats LLC, a mobile butch-
ering business in Homedale,
Idaho.
Kortney grew up on a
farm near Homedale and
attended community college
in Casper, Wyo., on a live-
stock judging scholarship.
“I transferred to Colo-
rado State University to fi n-
ish my bachelor’s degree,
and was on their judg-
ing teams for livestock and
horses. I grew up with live-
stock and horses; they paid
for my schooling,” Kortney
said.
She has two degrees, in
animal science and equine
science.
“I also have a meat sci-
ence minor and worked
in the meat science lab at
Kortney Bahem
Courtesy of Kortney Bahem
Kortney Bahem at work.
CSU,” she said.
Immediately after gradu-
ation, she worked for a meat
company in Colorado.
“It was an offi ce job,
however, in the big city of
Denver. So I moved home. I
wanted to do more hands-on,
on the processing,” Kort-
ney said. “My dad had Dan-
iel process a beef for them
prior to my moving home,
and told me I should talk to
the new butcher because he
might need some help!
“When I moved back
home, I met Daniel when
he hired me to help in the
butcher shop. The shop was
started by Daniel’s father,
and Daniel reopened it here
in 2014,” said Kortney.