Hometown: Miami, Okla.
Family: Husband, Brad; three children: Emma (10) Madeline (7) and Koen (6)
In Town: With an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a law degree from the University of Oklahoma, Georgeann Roye began her career first as a teacher in Vinita and Miami, Okla., and then as a lawyer at a large law firm in Oklahoma City.
Georgeann now works as an attorney in Miami, Okla. specializing in estate planning – primarily wills and trusts; low conflict or no conflict probate cases; contract review; and real estate issues. She also works with the city attorney, focusing on business issues for the City of Miami.
Her husband works as a supervising nurse for a plasma clinic in Joplin, Mo.
In Country: A desire to return to northeast Oklahoma to pursue a different lifestyle, beyond the confines of the Oklahoma City metro area, led the Royes to purchase 11 acres adjacent to Miami in 2015, when their oldest was 3 and she was 8-months pregnant with their second daughter.
“I couldn’t dare to dream that I could design a life like this,” Georgeann said. “I farm in the morning and work in the office in the afternoon.”
Georgeann said she grew up with a finger on agriculture, riding horses and working on ranches during her summers while in college. The agriculture lifestyle — including diversified regenerative farming practices — as well as a different pace in life, led the couple to lay the foundation for their operation in 2015.
She jokes they planned to build the farm slowly, “unfolding over decades,” but the pandemic compressed plans into the past three years. They now have a Jersey cow/calf pair, 13 Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats, a Beefmaster cow/calf pair, approximately 70 chickens and two turkeys.
The farm has grown enough to provide the family with 100 percent of their own beef, poultry, eggs and dairy products. Georgeann makes her own soft cheeses, butter and yogurt, with hard cheeses on the horizon.
She hopes her children grow up on the farm, developing not only a love of the outdoors but also a solid relationship with where their food comes from, as it goes from farm to table.
The Future: Georgeann hopes to scale the farm up enough to provide two to three farm shares for families wanting access to milk, eggs and other farm-fresh products.
Her ultimate goal is to increase the percentage of what the farm produces without outside input. Currently aspects of the dairy products —including whey and kefir —supplement the chicken’s feed, while eggs provide food for the dogs.
“The point of regenerative agriculture is to make the ground better as we go,” Georgeann said.
