Jewel Plagerman was crowned as the 2020 Whatcom County Dairy Ambassador in a virtual coronation in April.
Each year a new Dairy Ambassador is chosen to represent the local dairy community, focusing on education, promotion, and advocacy. Through a series of interviews and competitions, the Whatcom County Dairy Women and other judges select a young woman from a pool of candidates. This program is also found within other counties and even other states across the nation.
Despite many changes that have come through the introduction of Covid-19, one young woman stepped up to continue this tradition. Jewel Plagerman was crowned in April at a local Dairy Woman’s house as the new 2020-2021 Whatcom County Dairy Ambassador.
At the virtual crowning, Plagerman created a video that now has over 13,000 views on Facebook, which she says earned many more views than her speech would have gotten at the normal crowning event. Plagerman’s role as Dairy Ambassador requires her to be a positive image for the dairy community and to educate the public about the importance of the industry at both an economic and environmental level.
Having grown up in a big family as the third generation on her family’s farm, Plagerman is no stranger to hard work, spending many hours feeding calves, caring for animals, and doing field work. In fact, she admitted that she got out of doing some field work for the interview and that she is also working on an educational video about calf care coming out soon.
Most of Plagerman’s work this year will, in fact, be promoted through video due to Covid-19. However, she’s optimistic about this, as she believes it will provide her with an opportunity to impact more people than a normal public speech would. Her goal this year is to educate the public about dairy farms and the nutritional benefits of dairy products.
Plagerman, who plans to pursue a career in Veterinary work inspired by her passion for the dairy industry, has started off this year strong. She has a positive attitude and optimistic outlook, which is exactly what is needed for a young woman representing such a vital industry in Whatcom County.
Hear the full interview and more of her story here:
