Women inspiring women. That’s what the Rural Women in America Conference boils down to and every year they hit a homerun.
By LORI SOLA
Bowman County Pioneer
Women inspiring women. That’s what the Rural Women in America Conference boils down to and every year they hit a homerun.
Oct. 1 marked the 14th year of the conference being held in Bowman, at the 4 Seasons Pavilion on the Bowman County Fairgrounds. Again it was a sold-out affair. The conference’s theme, “Follow your arrow,” was prominent in all three of the scheduled guest speakers, Marji Guyler-Alaniz, Anne Mahlum and Jessie Veeder.
Like each year before, workshops were held between the guest speakers, this year offering lessons of wood aging and staining, container gardening, flower arrangements, creating concrete planters, honing knife skills in the kitchen, and the art of breathing and stretching. Conference attendees enjoyed food, coffee, shopping and fellowship throughout the day, all the while reflecting on the words of the speakers.
Highlighting women in ag
Marji Guyler-Alaniz was the first speaker of the day and her passion in life highlights the very work that many women in the room do every day: agriculture.
After 11 years of working for a crop insurance agency and having two small kids at home, she realized her corporate job wasn’t for her anymore no matter how much money she made.
The weekend after she quit, the much-celebrated 2013 Ram Trucks commercial “Farmer” featuring Paul Harvey’s, “So God Made a Farmer,” aired during the Super Bowl. While a powerful commercial made Guyler-Alaniz and her friends stop and stare, she couldn’t help but wonder where the women were.
Three girls were pictured in that commercial and it bothered Guyler-Alaniz to the point where she couldn’t let it go.
That’s when her background in graphic design, journalism and photography kicked in and she proclaimed, “I am going to start photographing women and show the world the women of agriculture in a positive and uplifting way.”
And she did. Starting with women in her home state of Iowa.
Even though Guyler-Alaniz admits she didn’t know how to start, she didn’t let that deter her from her goal. She immersed herself in spotlighting women in agriculture.
“My role is to stand up and say ‘look what she does’ and ‘look what she does’ because you probably won’t say ‘look what I do,’” she said. It didn’t take long for Guyler-Alaniz’s eyes to be opened up to all the diversity of farming.
Within three years, shadowing eight local Iowan women soon turned into 150 women from Montana to Texas. Along the way, she built a website, social media pages, shared photos and stories, created an online community, videos, blogs, landed a show on television, developed Grow events, speaking engagements, products and more.
According to data Guyler-Alaniz shared, 30 percent of farm operators in the United States are women while 65 percent of women outside the country are farmers.
“Take pride in what you do,” Guyler-Alaniz encouraged. “Inspire the next generation.” She quoted Neal Donald Walsche’s popular sentiment in saying, “Life begins at the end of our comfort zone.”
Struggling with purpose, dealing with success
Growing up in Bismarck, Anne Mahlum knew from a very young age that she was meant for big city living and stored her dreams of a perfect New York City life in a box under her bed.
But to become the entrepreneur, leader, speaker, runner and risk-taker that she is today, she endured many hardships and tough decisions. When she realized she didn’t need anyone’s permission to go for what she wanted to achieve, she became unstoppable and has blazed trails in both the non-profit and for-profit business sectors.
Her journey began at the age of 16 when she learned of her father wasn’t the superhero figure she’d come to adore. Instead, he was a man struggling with a gambling addiction, owed a lot of people money, lied, and chose gambling over his family. Even though he overcame drug and alcohol addictions many years earlier, her mother asked him to move out.
To handle all the negativity and overwhelming emotions of her parent’s divorce, running became Mahlum’s outlet.
In a rush to achieve her goals, Mahlum finished college early with two degrees, graduated early from graduate school, lived and worked in Washington, D.C., then at the age of 24 received a job offer in Philadelphia too amazing to pass up.
But she felt lost and struggled to find her purpose. She quit her job.
“If there was one thing that I knew I was, I was a runner,” she said. Her running route took her past a homeless shelter; one she’s been by hundreds of times before. She began wondering why she ran past those men instead of with them. Since running doesn’t discriminate, she decided to start a running club three days a week.
“Homeless people don’t run,” the homeless shelter director said. Mahlum convinced the director to ask if anyone was interested. Nine men said yes.
During this time, Mahlum is now 26 and was offered a six-figure job. She asked for a five weeks to get the club up and running; the company agreed.
She secured donations for new shoes, provided clothes and asked the men to sign a dedication contract agreeing to three things: be on time; come with a positive attitude; and courage and support your teammates.
Soon nine men turned into 20 to 30 people and Back on My Feet was born, creating runners out of the homeless. Through running, new confident identities were being created and the homeless became teammates, friends, reliable, responsible, disciplined and focused.
The spunky, blonde-haired girl from North Dakota wanted to see this through and turned down that lucrative job and turned Back on My Feet into a non-profit organization with a 6.5 million dollar operating budget in 11 cities across the country and helped over 4,000 homeless people find housing and jobs.
Being the builder and creator she is, she left it three years ago and began a for-profit high-end fitness boutique in Washington, D.C. By the end of this year, [solidcore] will have 20 locations.
In the end, Mahlum’s message is simple: Don’t be afraid of failure; show up in your life and relationships; like and love who you are in your head; and dream big and be responsible for your dreams.
Never giving up on life’s passion
Combining folk music, talking and joking around with the crowd, Jessie Veeder spoke of her journey not to live in Nashville, Tenn., but back home at her family ranch outside of Watford City.
A natural storyteller and musician, Veeder released her first original album at the age of 16. She now has four albums, a weekly statewide column, was voted North Dakota’s favorite folk artist at the 2016 North Dakota Music Awards and is a mother of a 10-month-old child.
Her beautiful voice and guitar playing melds her love of the country, family and her whimsical outlook on life, but she is no stranger to hard work.
“When you fall, you have to get back up again. There’s just no choice,” Veeder said.
She is another shining example that women do not have to give up their passions when becoming a wife or mother and can live out their dreams in the place they love.
