The Best Job in South Dakota: Nikiah Hamilton, East Central Hub

Nikiah Hamilton didn't grow up in agriculture. She fell for it riding along in the buddy seat with her now-husband during high school, and by the time they built a life together, farming wasn't something she'd married into. It was something she'd chosen.

Today Nikiah is the East Central Hub Manager for the Women's Ag Network, covering Huron and the surrounding communities. She farms full-time alongside her husband at Hamilton Farms outside of Wessington, where the family also runs a composting business. She's also the owner of 382 Farmhouse Co., a small batch tallow skincare line made from their own cattle. Add in two kids and a degree in ag business, and it's fair to say Nikiah has more than one best job in South Dakota.

Falling for the farm

Nikiah spent time in previous roles with USDA's Farm Service Agency and Farm Credit Services of America before coming back to Hamilton Farms full time, and has been all in ever since, especially in calving. Their cattle supply the tallow behind her skincare line, which has grown from one shared batch to shipping in seventeen states. The family has also spent a decade reclaiming saline ground and building a composting operation to cut back on commercial fertilizer, work they opened up to the public this summer during the Excellence in Rangeland Management Tour.

A cup, not a checklist

We asked Nikiah how she'd describe WAN to a woman who hasn't been to an event yet. She said, don't think of it as one more thing on your to-do list. Think of it as something that fills your cup back up. For women who feel too stretched thin to add anything else to their week, that's the perspective she says makes the difference.

Meanwhile, Chris

Chris kicked things off with a deep dive into the surprising origin of Vaseline, invented back in the 1870s and still sitting in medicine cabinets everywhere more than 150 years later, including, apparently, a half-used jar in Chris's that may date back to the 1980s.

What's ahead

Nikiah is helping run WAN's new scholarship program, supporting women pursuing training and education in agriculture and conservation, with more details at womensagnetwork.org. She's most looking forward to WAN's State Fair social, Thursday, September 3rd, 4:30 to 6:00 at the Wine Pavillion and Tap Haus, a chance for women across every hub to connect.

You can hear the full conversation with Nikiah here, or wherever you get your podcasts. Find WAN at www.WomensAgNetwork.org and on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

All the best,

Rebecca

The Best Job in South Dakota: Ashley Wiesen, East Hub Manager

Ashley Wiesen did not exactly plan to end up where she is today. Growing up in Willow Lake, she knew she wanted a life in agriculture, but she also knew what she didn't want. Not a farm. Not South Dakota. Not the Midwest. The plan was a corporate ladder, a big city, and ag on her own terms.

She got the internship with Cargill, then a full-time offer, and the company sent her to Pipestone, Minnesota. Not exactly the faraway posting she'd pictured. She figured she'd stick it out and transfer later, and then she met her husband, and the big-city dream quietly became a lovely life in a small town, that she never saw coming.

Today Ashley is the East Hub Manager for the Women's Ag Network, covering Brookings and the surrounding area. She's also an ag teacher and FFA advisor, teaching grades seven through twelve everything from plant and food science to ag business and leadership. She and her husband run an event rental business, they raise cattle, and she's mom to three. When we joked that it would take two of us to be one Ashley, we weren't really joking.

The long way back to the classroom

Ashley started college in ag education. Her dad was her high school ag teacher, she'd been a state FFA officer, and teaching felt like the obvious path, right up until she spent a few hours in front of a room of high school boys and walked into her advisor's office to change her major. The grain business came next, several years with Cargill and ADM, fast-paced and sales-driven, the kind of job where the markets start moving while you're sitting in the airport on the way to your own honeymoon. That actually happened to her.

What kept pulling her back wasn't the markets. It was the relationships. Her SDSU ag ed advisor never quite let the idea go, sending job listings every couple of years until one finally opened up close to home. Ashley took it. A few years older and a lot less rattled by teenagers, she says the high school boys aren't nearly as scary at thirty as they were at eighteen.

If one story sums her up, it's land judging. She hated it as a freshman, all mud and wet dirt and slope. She grew to love it, won state her senior year, and went to nationals in Oklahoma City with her cousin on the team and her dad coaching. The one piece of advice everyone gave her was don't second guess your slope. She second guessed her slope. It tanked her score, and her dad has been telling that story to her own students ever since. Last year she coached her own team to nationals, where they placed third in the country in the home site division. Full circle, with her dad sitting right next to her.

A room full of women

We asked Ashley how she'd describe the Women's Ag Network to someone who hasn't made it to an event yet, and her answer stuck with both of us. A lot of women in ag, she said, find it more intimidating to walk into a room full of women than a room full of men, because so many of us are used to being one of the only women in the room. What she found at the Brookings hub launch was the opposite. People mingling, introducing each other, following up afterward to make sure nobody got missed.

Part of it, she thinks, is that women in ag carry things they don't always say out loud. You're not going to complain about the heat to your husband who's been out baling all day, but you'll say it to a friend who's living the same season and just gets it. Come with an open mind, she says, and you leave with a new connection, a new idea, or a new friend.

Meanwhile, Chris

Chris turned up to record with a broken arm. His telling: a leisurely bike ride, a distracted rider coming the other way, a swerve to avoid a head-on collision, and down he went with his arm out to break the fall. He rode himself home ten miles one-handed. Now he can't drive, since all his cars are stick shifts, he's shaving left-handed and fully expecting to bleed to death, and because the break sits right at the neck of the radius bone, he's been telling his wife he broke his neck. As Rebecca pointed out, the surest sign he'll be fine is that he's already milking it for sympathy.

What's ahead

We closed by asking Ashley what she's most excited about for the East Hub this year. She wants it to be two things at once: a place where a woman can share a frustration and know she'll be supported, and a place people are genuinely excited to put on the calendar. After the launch she couldn't sleep, too keyed up from the energy in the room. She keeps coming back to something her parents told her, that it's not what you know, it's who you know, and something a friend once said: if you want cool things to happen in your small town, you have to do cool things. Her bet is that a year from now there will be events, partnerships, maybe a new business, all traced back to a connection someone made at a WAN event. Ours too.

The East Hub is the newest one, and there's already a lot happening around Brookings. Want to keep up with WAN between episodes? Find the network at womensagnetwork.org and on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

You can hear the full conversation with Ashley at BestJobSD.com or wherever you listen. New here? There are six seasons waiting for you.

All the best,
Rebecca

The Best Job in South Dakota: Season 7 Trailer & Preview

We're back. After a few months off and time to enjoy the summer, Chris and I are kicking off Season 7, and this one's a little different. Every episode is built around the Women's Ag Network, a statewide network connecting women across South Dakota agriculture, conservation, and related fields, the women behind it, and the work they're doing across the state.

Here's what that looks like. Instead of our usual mix of guests, you'll meet the women of WAN. These are the women I get to work alongside, and most folks have no idea how much ground they cover. They all bring an amazing mix of backgrounds and experience and I can’t wait for you to meet them all.

A full summer

After we got the hubs up and running, I put a lot of miles on the truck. Driving between Belle Fourche and Eagle Butte, I looked out and saw my first baby antelope standing in a field, which of course made me stop and remember what an incredible and beautiful state South Dakota is!

The part I didn't see coming on my travels across the state was beekeeping. Erica, who I first met through a WAN event, handed me the full gear and a smoker and walked me through checking a hive, bees and all. I've done plenty of things in agriculture. That was a first.

Chris's summer

Chris had his own kind of summer. He spent the country's 250th birthday in York, Pennsylvania, a town with more history per block than seems fair. He visited the graves of a few signers of the Declaration of Independence, caught a York Revolution ballgame, and stuck around for the fireworks.

And because he is Chris, he found the food angle. In 1871, York baker David F. Stauffer introduced Americans to his original recipe animal crackers. They are still in production over 150 years later.   Chris wasn’t leaving town without a stop to load up on a stash of discounted, factory-second, Stauffer’s animal crackers. History and a snack. Very on brand for him. 

What's ahead

So that's Season 7. Real conversations with the women of the Women's Ag Network about how they got here, what the work actually looks like day to day, and where they're headed. My guess is you'll see more of yourself in these stories than you'd expect.

Want to keep up with WAN between episodes? Find the network at womensagnetwork.org and on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Season 7 starts Wednesday, July 29th. New here? There are six seasons waiting for you at BestJobSD.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

All the best,
Rebecca