Nichole Neubauer’s earliest classroom was a calving barn. Born on June 1, 1973, in Medicine Hat, she grew up on her parents’ family farm, where a cow in labour on a school night was reason enough to head outside and watch, and sometimes help. That early exposure to the rhythms of birth, growth and hard work planted something in her that never left, and decades later it grew into one of southern Alberta’s most distinctive agricultural education programs.
From Stampede Princess to Early Childhood Educator
Long before she became a farm educator, Nichole was named the 1992 Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede Princess, a role that had her giving talks, attending fundraisers and representing the Western way of life to the public. The experience deepened her connection to rural culture and set her on a path toward early childhood education at Medicine Hat College. Over the following fifteen years she worked across schools, preschools and daycare centres in the Medicine Hat area, developing programming, advocating for children with special needs and later serving seven years as an early intervention therapist with Alberta Health Services.
Turning a Family Farm Into a Classroom
Nichole noticed that many of her students spent their days in sterile, indoor settings, disconnected from where their food came from. She invited a friend’s kindergarten class out to Neubauer Farms for a hands-on day, and the reaction from even the most hesitant kids, soon petting horses and feeding calves, convinced her she was onto something. Working with educators to align farm visits with curriculum standards, she built the Growing Minds program, which now brings roughly 3,000 students to Neubauer Farms every year and has welcomed more than 22,000 children since 2005.
When the pandemic disrupted in-person learning, Nichole pitched Prairie Rose Public Schools on an even bigger idea, a working farm built right on the grounds of Irvine School. The school division approved it, and in the summer of 2021 the Agriculture Discovery Centre opened, complete with feeder steers, bottle calves, lambs, goats, pigs, laying hens, a market garden, a greenhouse and a vermicomposting system. Students run the daily chores themselves, from feeding and caring for animals to organizing an annual harvest and livestock sale that funds the program’s growth.
Building the Next Generation of Alberta’s Agriculture Workforce
Concerned about the shrinking pipeline of young people entering agriculture, Nichole partnered with industry professionals to develop AgPro, a set of Career and Technology Foundation courses for grades 7 through 9 that introduce students to careers across the sector. She is now building an online version of AgPro to reach students and teachers across the province, and she is working with Medicine Hat College to develop new agriculture certificate and diploma programs. She and her husband Mark are also partnering with Prairie Rose Public Schools on the South Alberta School of Agriculture, a high-school program set to open in September 2027.
An Advocate Beyond Her Own Farm
As her programs grew, so did Nichole’s role in the wider agriculture community. She has served as a board member of the Seven Persons Grazing Association and helped establish the Medicine Hat and District Chamber of Commerce Agriculture Education Task Force, where she pushes for policy that keeps agriculture education a provincial priority. In 2020, the Alberta Minister of Agriculture appointed her a founding director of Results Driven Agriculture Research, and her growing profile has made her a sought-after speaker at community organizations and large industry conferences alike, where she talks about using food and farming to bridge the gap between rural and urban Albertans.
The recognition has followed steadily. In 2016 the Neubauers were named the Bank of Montreal Farm Family of the Year for Cypress County, and the following year Neubauer Farms was named Small Business of the Year by the Medicine Hat and District Chamber of Commerce. Nichole later received the 2020 Women in Business Medicine Hat Inspire Award and, in 2024, an Honorary Applied Baccalaureate degree from Medicine Hat College.
Her honours include being named the 2018 Cypress County Citizen of the Year, the 2023 Medicine Hat News Newsmaker of the Year, and the recipient of the King Charles III Coronation Medal in 2024. As detailed in her official Alberta Order of Excellence profile, Nichole was inducted into the Order in 2025 in recognition of her work bringing agriculture to life for tens of thousands of young Albertans.
Nichole and Mark are the parents of two, son Logan, now a commercial pilot, and daughter Evie, who is pursuing a career in teaching, and both still lend a hand on the family farm.
How many future farmers, ranchers and agronomists got their start on a school field trip to a place like Neubauer Farms?
