Senior Overall Judge is now the Jamie Donohoe Memorial Award in honour of Jamie Donohoe a past WCC Participant and Holstein Breeder from Donfield Farms, Brandon, Manitoba and sponsored by Donfield Farms, the Donhoe Family.
Daryl Barkman a longtime friend of Jamie’s presented the award for the first time and had these words to share.
“Before we get to the presentation of this award, I’d like to share a few words on behalf of Jamies family and his many friends in the dairy industry.
This memorial award was created to honor the memory of Jamie Donohoe, an exceptional cowman, official Holstein Canada judge, and a strong supporter for the future generation of dairy farmers.
Jamie never shied away from sharing his knowledge of the Holstein industry and encouraging young dairy farmers. He could leave a lasting impression as he was never afraid to speak his mind, often vocalizing what many others were silently thinking!
With Jamie there was no magical udder cream or lucky halter. Instead, there was hard work, confidence, and a desire to succeed. He believed being a dairy judge began outside the show ring, respecting those who tried hard and genuinely enjoyed being a dairy farmer. Breeding, production, genetics, nutrition, and creating your own herd of good quality milk cows was every bit as important to Jamie as showing dairy cattle. To him, these were all qualities that made an excellent judge of the dairy breed.
I felt very fortunate to call Jamie Donohoe a close personal friend, as many of you in attendance tonight would as well.
I’m not exactly sure when or how my friendship with Jamie started? You see we didn’t grow up in the same town, or live across the street from each other, didn’t go to school together, and never played on the same sports teams, in fact we grew up in opposite corners of the province.
Our friendship grew out of events like WCC, 4H achievement days, and in later years competing and exhibiting in open dairy shows, and impromptu road trips to World Dairy Expo and the Royal Winter Fair.
I think every participant at this year’s WCC event has a desire to do as well as they possibly can, and top placing achievements are incredible results and something to cherish and be proud of. But I think the true winners are the participants who find and make friends, like the friend & mentor Jamie Donohoe was to all of us. Friendships and bonds built during competition and over the comradery of teamwork are relationships that will last a lifetime.
My wish for each of you is that over the course of a week like this that you will find friendship and mentorship amongst your teammates and competitors, like Jamie was for so many of us.
