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together and he has gone out of his way to find me mentors who could teach me the skills I admired. He has
championships at Bonanza twice. He has won showmanship and grooming competitions many times,
“Find out what you’re good at and push yourself,” says Kurtis. “If you don’t do it, you never become better.” And last but not least, he says, “always use sharp blades!” also always tried to find me the most competitive animals possible.” Kurtis describes his dad as a patient teacher. Ask Kurtis what he considers his biggest skill and he will say his drive. That drive resulted in him reaching the honours list in high school and his overall aggregate
showed the Supreme Champion Bred and Owned female at Bonanza 2005 and the Reserve Grand Champion Female and Grand Champion Bull at Bonanza 2009. All of this culminated in receiving the Keith Gilmore Scholarship, the Future of the Breed Scholarship and an Ag r ibition
H E R E F O R D
D I G E S T
Scholarship. For Matt Lautner Cattle, Kurtis succeeded in doubling semen sales in Western Canada from January to May, over the previous year. Still, his proudest accomplishment, he says, is marrying his wife Selene. And as spring 2013 turned to summer, the couple moved onto their new farm property, 30 minutes north of Saskatoon, realizing a dream come true but also marking a lot of beginnings
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Ben Alward It’s up at 4:30 a.m. and a half hour bus ride from a work camp in Alberta to work sites in the oil and gas industry as a pipe-fitter and as foreman of a work crew. It’s 12 and sometimes 13-hour days, working for 14 consecutive days and then returning home to Meductic, New Brunswick for seven days before the cycle is repeated. Ben grew up on a Hereford operation along the Saint John River in western New Brunswick. Two years ago, the Digest profiled that small farm operation, interviewing Ben’s dad, David Alward who was then and who remains the Premier of New Brunswick. It is David’s grandfather who started the Hereford tradition in the family in the 1950s. Ben has been on the job in Alberta for a year and a half now, pipe-fitting in the field and inside plants. His last stint lasted a month as he and a crew of men replaced and fixed pipes on operations that were essentially shut down for maintenance. He has his own room out there with a shared washroom. Conditions aren’t so bad, he says. It’s good food prepared for you and lunches are premade. The company also books and pays for his flights back and forth from home. His last job was in a camp of 7,000 men but there are just 700 men in his current camp. It’s no secret that their jobs are well-paying and what young man can resist? It’s short-term pain
for long-term gain, in Ben’s case. After graduating high school, Ben earned his plumbing license and went on to apprentice in pipe-fitting. He would have preferred to farm for a living but he knows that is not a viable, sustainable option. So he first set himself up with a good trade, with hopes of buying land back home and establishing a cattle herd to be proud of. That is now the short-term goal in two years’ time. In the meantime, t h e f o u r- y e a r apprenticeship m u s t b e completed. It is a block system, in which 7,200 hours are required for his journeyman ticket. After each 1,800 hours, more schooling in math and sc ience is required, followed by one big test annually and an inter-provincial exam. Ben has one more block left so his apprenticeship i s no w t h r e e quarters complete. In his ter m as p r e m i e r, B e n’s fat her David Alward has championed
a West-East pipeline that would transport Alberta and Saskatchewan crude oil to a refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. A spring article in the Financial Post cites Alward at a Toronto speaking engagement as saying “I want to see the day when the mother and father, the son or daughter leave their New Brunswick home in the morning to go work in the development of natural resources,
Ben Alward 45