Lorie Smith, winner of the 2021 Tommy Cooper Award. (supplied photo)
The 2021 Tommy Cooper Award winner is Lorie Smith from Grey Highlands.
Smith has worked for Grey Agricultural Services since 2005 and currently serves as the organization’s vice president and office manager. She resides on a farm with her husband David in the Walter’s Falls area, where they run a commercial cow calf operation.
“I have the distinct pleasure of working with farmers everyday,” Smith says in accepting the award on the 560 CFOS Morning Show. “They are the cream of the crop. They are a wonderful group of people. And because they give so much to the community and contribute to our table, it inspires us to work harder and harder to make these excellent programs for them.”
Having grown up on a dairy farm near Walter’s Falls, Smith has been involved in agriculture all her life.
In her teenage years Smith participated in life-skills 4-H clubs and was an active Chatsworth Junior Farmer.
She attended a co-op program at the University of Waterloo and following graduation she worked with Procter & Gamble in products research.
Smith moved back to Grey County in 1990 and continued to work remotely for Procter & Gamble over the next 15 years.
She has been involved with countless agricultural organizations. Most notably, Smith has coordinated Grey Bruce Farmers’ Week for the past 16 years and helped transition the conference online when the pandemic disrupted the usual event in Elmwood in 2020.
Among the other organizations Smith has been involved with are: the Georgian Regional Soil and Crop Improvement Association, Georgian Region SCIA, Grey County Soil and Crop Improvement Association, Ontario Biomass Producers and Grey County Ag Advisory Committee.
The Tommy Cooper Award has been given out annually since 1959 by Bayshore Broadcasting and the Owen Sound Sun Times. It goes to a person who has contributed to the betterment of agriculture and rural living in Grey and Bruce counties.
Normally, the award is given out at a celebration in Elmwood. But, for the second straight year, the pandemic interrupted those plans.
Tommy Cooper died in 1981. He is well remembered for his 39 years as a provincial government farm extension worker in Grey County. Cooper is credited with help area farmers adapt to new scientific and mechanical innovations in the first half of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Grey-Bruce Livestock Co-operative, and was active in many community organizations.
You can listen to the announcement of the award on the 560 CFOS Morning Show below.