Waechter-Mead brings veterinary perspective to extension beef systems position in her home county – Hastings Tribune

RED CLOUD While a ranchers life in the rolling hills of central Webster County isnt for everyone, for Lindsay Waechter-Mead it comes as naturally as the greening of pastures and arrival of newborn calves in the springtime.

This dear countryside is home to her and her family and thats one reason she is so pleased to be the new Nebraska Extension beef systems educator for an eight-county region that includes most of Tribland.

Being in agriculture is always what I was going to do, said Waechter-Mead, who grew up on her familys diversified crop and livestock farm southeast of Bladen, then went off to college and veterinary school to prepare for that future. I really did see veterinary medicine as a way to stay in rural Webster County.

Today, she and her husband, Clay Mead, live on the family farm her great-grandfather established in 1901. They are raising their three children, ages 12, 10 and 6, as the fifth generation of her family to live on that land.

After 12 years practicing veterinary medicine in Alda and Hastings and then two years on the faculty of the Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center in Clay County, she began work Feb. 1 as a beef systems educator serving Webster, Franklin, Kearney, Adams, Clay, Fillmore, Thayer and Nuckolls counties. Her office is in the Webster County Courthouse.

She is one of 15 beef systems educators posted around the state, interacting directly with ranchers and cattle feeders seeking to sustain and improve their operations.

Besides raising children, Waechter-Mead and her husband have a registered Red Angus beef herd of their own.

When shes not on the job for Nebraska Extension, shes at home tending those cattle or shuttling the children to their growing list of activities.

She said her new job will allow her to assist fellow beef producers and her home community, but without the night and weekend on-call duties of private veterinary practice that crowd out family obligations.

I just thought this is really where I should be, she said. Its home. Thats a big, big reason.

Waechter-Mead grew up the farm near Bladen or 14 miles straight north of Red Cloud with her parents, Keith and Linda (Crom) Waechter, and her three sisters.

She graduated from Blue Hill High School in 1998, then went on to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she studied veterinary science and animal science and met her future husband. Following graduation, she attended the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University.

With her doctorate of veterinary medicine newly in hand, she worked from 2008-10 at a small, mixed practice in Alda caring for both large and small animals. Then, she moved to the Animal Clinic at Hastings, a busy mixed practice with several doctors on staff and patients ranging from horses to house cats.

After nearly a decade at the Animal Clinic, Waechter-Mead was one of three veterinarians added to the faculty at the Great Plains Veterinary Education Center, a UNL center housed on the Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center west of Clay Center, in January 2020.

At GPVEC, five veterinarians and a revolving cast of veterinary students help care for the livestock on the sprawling research center operated by the U.S. Department of Agricultures Ag Research Service in collaboration with UNL.

USMARC addresses national priority issues in beef, pork and sheep production from breeding through slaughter, as well as food safety. The research center has its own beef feedlot and abbatoir, or slaughterhouse, as well as many square miles of pasture and cropland for feed.

The veterinary education center brings in students from across the United States for clinical rotations.

As a lecturer and clinical practice veterinarian at GPVEC, Waechter-Mead focused on cow-calf issues and shared her knowledge with the students in the classroom and the field.

Meanwhile, she had a 50% extension appointment from UNL, meaning half of her job was to transmit useful knowledge from the university to beef producers across the state.

Thats basically the hub for veterinary extension specialists right now, she said of GPVEC and its importance to UNL, which partners with Iowa State University for veterinary education but has livestock-producing constituents to support from Harrison to Humboldt and from Stratton to South Sioux City.

While she enjoyed private practice, working with a variety of clients and species to solve problems in a clinical environment, she was looking for a work schedule that would allow her to both practice medicine and make time to be an active and engaged parent.

Waechter-Mead looked at the possibility of focusing on small-animal practice, but also wanted a way to remain living and working in a rural community.

She said she didnt grow up showing cattle, but that her husband always has been passionate about the beef industry, and as a young couple without much money they had begun to build their Red Angus herd by purchasing four bred cows 20 years ago.

I felt myself really appreciating the farm life, she said. I started looking for ways I could really start focusing on the beef-systems side of things.

The Nebraska Extension beef systems position based in Webster County was held for many years by Dewey Lienemann of Blue Hill.

After Lienemann retired in 2017, the position was filled in 2018-19 by Brad Schick and from July 2019 to January 2021 by Sydney ODaniel, then stood vacant for a full year.

While Waechter-Mead enjoyed the relationships she built with students at GPVEC, shes looking forward to more personal contact with producers in her new role.

She said after having statewide outreach responsibilities in her extension role with GPVEC, she sees the eight-county area she now serves as modest in size.

She wants to address the specific challenges producers are facing in her coverage region. In addition, she and her beef systems colleagues meet twice per month to confer about state concerns related to production and economics.

The things were watching as a beef team are definitely drought management and input costs, she said.

Shes continuing her active involvement in her profession, serving as vice president of the Nebraska Veterinary Medical Associations Executive Board. Shell be the board president in 2023.

Shes also continuing the research she started at GPVEC, working with Dr. Brian Vander Ley, a veterinary epidemiologist, to study how environmental factors affect neonatal calf health.

Waechter-Mead believes her qualifications as a veterinarian will give her a unique perspective as a beef systems educator, and she hopes to work closely with her fellow doctors in practice throughout the eight counties.

Through her work with 4-H and FFA, she also hopes to encourage children and teens to consider a possible future career in veterinary medicine especially given the demand for more practitioners to support agriculture in rural America.

Its really the rural practices that are seeing an issue, she said of the unmet need for doctors willing to live in small towns and treat patients on the farm and ranch as well as in the office.

In Webster County shell be involved with community programming including 4-H and the county fair, which her family already knows well. Her husband serves on the fair board.

The connections are personal and heartfelt.

Prior to her death in 2002 at age 106, Waechter-Meads great-grandmother, Margaret Crom, was recognized by the National 4-H Council as perhaps the oldest living 4-H volunteer in the United States. And Waechter-Mead recently found a treasure tucked away in her office: a yellowed handbill from a 1970 extension program that involved her late grandfather, Dale Crom.

She wants the same thing for her constituents as she wants for herself: A chance to keep doing what they love while staying close to their roots.

My ultimate goal is that everyone continue to have this rural lifestyle, be profitable and be able to raise cattle, she said.

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Waechter-Mead brings veterinary perspective to extension beef systems position in her home county - Hastings Tribune