Tommy Cooper Award
The 2009 Tommy Cooper Award was awarded April 16th at the Elmwood Community Centre.
Congratulations to Jack Riley of Paisley!
This years' winner played a pivotal role in organizing the 2008 International Plowing Match in Bruce county. Jack Riley of Paisely is the winner of the Tommy Cooper award. He was nominated by the Bruce county Federation of Agriculture.
Riley has been a member of the Federation for 35 years, he is a past chair of the Bruce county plowmen's association. Riley is also director on the Saugeen Conservation authority. He was the first farmer east of Manitoba to devote land to the Food Grains Bank, in 1991. The grain grown that year was donated to Ethiopia. Jack Riley was Chair of the 2008 International Plowing Match in Bruce County.
In total, Seven people were nominated for this year's Tommy Cooper award. The Tommy Cooper award goes to the person who has made the greatest contribution to agriculture and rural living. It commemorates the late Tommy Cooper, a well known provincial government agricultural representative in the area who was instrumental in founding the Grey Bruce Livestock co-operative.
- Bayshore Broadcasting News
The other nominees for the 2009 Tommy Cooper Award were...
Donald McNalty of RR 2 Singhampton. He is nominated by the Feversham Agricultural society. Don is currently the President of the Bluewater Angus Association, and he is 2nd Vice President of the Feversham Ag Society.
Allen Hughes of RR 2 Meaford has been nominated by the Grey county Federation of Agriculture. He is currently a director of the Federation and is a Past President. Allen was also chair of Marketing and promotion for the 2004 IPM.
Denise Edwards of RR 6 Markdale and Alex Leith of RR 4 Durham. They are co-nominees who have been an integral part of the rural leadership team in Grey county. Employed by OMAF they always went beyond the call of duty to work with the rural community.
Carl Weber of RR 1 Ayton is nominated by the Normanby Plowmen's Association. Weber was a member of the 2004 Grey county International Plowing match executive and he has worked for years with youth thru the Grey county and Ontario 4-H.
The Egremont and Proton federation of agriculture nominated RR 2 Conn area pork producer Wayne Caughill. He is a former chairman of Grey county pork producers and is currently an executive member of the Grey county federation of agriculture.
Looking back... Robert Emerson, winner of the 2008 Tommy Cooper Award
Ripley area beef producer Robert Emerson is the most recent winner of the annual Tommy Cooper award
for outstanding contribution to agriculture in Bruce Grey.
Emerson says it's a tremendous honour to be recognized by his peers
in farming and he is glad to share it with previous winners that date back to
1959.
Emerson was nominated by the Bruce County Federation of
Agriculture -- in part for his work as Past President of the
group.
Emerson feels most proud of his work lobbying federal and
provincial politicians and creating a good relationship to improve
agriculture, but he says more work needs to be done to improve
agriculture locally and across the province.
Emerson notes that agriculture
will soon pass auto manufacturing as the number one industry in Canada and he
wants governments to do more to help farmers. He says they need to
focus on the cost of production to increase the profit margin -- and that will
attract more young farmers.
Emerson also feels food security and food safety will continue
to be big issues for Canadians.
- Bayshore Broadcasting News
