Name: Kelly Campbell
In Town: Kelly Campbell, a native of Alma, Ark., is a Lab Tech at St. Edwards Hospital, where she does blood tests and blood work. She's been blood testing for five years, and prior to joining the staff at St. Edwards, she worked for United Blood Services. She did her lab tech training at UA Fort Smith, called Westark when she graduated.
In the Country: Kelly runs a cow-calf operation that averages 25 head of crossbred beef cattle on an 80-acre spread just north of Alma. The house that stands on the property was built by her great-grandparents, and she is the fourth generation of the Campbell family to farm and ranch there.
Campbell is also the first woman to serve on the Crawford County Farm Bureau and is just beginning her second year of service. "I'm still getting my feet wet," Campbell said. "Because I'm the first woman, the other members of the bureau harass me a lot, but it's all good natured. I knew a lot of them already, and the ones who harass me the most are the ones who pushed me to join the bureau and who asked me to do it. Gene Robertson really kept after me to join the Farm Bureau," said Campbell. "There was a big push to get more younger people inovolved with it, and he really kept after me to join."
How would you like to improve your operation?
"I would like to have more divided paddocks so we could do rotational grazing," Campbell said. "I've been working some with the NRCS and we'd like to eventually get that going in the next three years."
How do you balance work at St. Edwards with home?
"I work the second shift at the hospital, so that means I don't start work until 2 p.m.," said Campbell. "I get time to get what I need to do at home done, before I go to work. Also, my mother, Reeca Campbell gets home at around 5 p.m., so she can help me out starting then." Kelly's mother is also in the medical field, working as a nurse at a medical clinic in Fort Smith.
By Roy Hill
