LeeAnn Wantland
In Town: Niangua, Mo.’s LeeAnn Wantland has been working fulltime as a legal assistant since 2009, which is the same year her youngest child started school.
She has worked at various law offices in Springfield and Lebanon, and she is currently employed with Allen and Rector Attorneys at Law in Lebanon.
“I really love working with the people,” she said.
She obtained her legal assisting degree in 2001, but opted to take a “break” after graduating and worked at the Webster County Courthouse for several years, and was a full-time farm mom for seven and a half years.
In The Country: LeeAnn and her husband, Jeff, have been married for 21 years and have three daughters: 18-year-old Katie, 16-year-old Ellie Wantland and 11-year-old Lila.
The family currently milks between 60 and 65 head of Holsteins on a farm that has been in Jeff’s family for generations in Webster County, Mo.
LeeAnn said her ties to farm life and the dairy industry were established well before she and Jeff were married.
“Jeff has always had the farming background and grew up on the farm where the milk barn is and where the dairy cattle are, and my very first job at the age of 15 was milking cows. I did that for the next three years, all through high school.”
Being dairy farmers, LeeAnn added, is just part of the Wantland family tradition.
“It has to be in your blood,” she said. “I can’t see someone just coming into a marriage that had never had any experience with cattle and accept all of the a early mornings, late nights and no vacations.”
That same blood is running through the veins of the three Wantland girls.
“From the time they could toddle out to the calf pen, they were holding a bottle, feeding a calf,” LeeAnn said.
About the time LeeAnn and Jeff were married, Jeff’s mother, Mary, offered a piece of advice that LeeAnn has always remembered.
“She told me, ‘You will learn that stuff to bought for the farm comes first. You may need a new car, you may need new furniture, but not if you need something on the farm because that is needed more.’”
During the summer months, the Wantlands spend a lot of family time on the road, going to local and regional dairy cattle shows.
