It feels entirely appropriate on this first day of National Ag Week to welcome a new face to Prairie Farmer: Meet Sierra Day, our new field editor!

Sierra is an Illinois farm girl and cattlewoman whose education took her from Illinois to Kansas and back again. She graduated from Kansas State University in 2020 with a degree in ag communications and journalism, and in animal sciences and industry. (That’s two majors; she’s obviously an overachiever.) Prior to that, she graduated from Lake Land College in Mattoon.

If you’ve looked around a show ring much, especially in Illinois Angus circles, you’ve likely seen Sierra. She grew up showing cattle and served as president of the Illinois Junior Angus Association. More recently, she’s been behind the camera, shooting show-ring candids for Cindy Cagwin-Johnston.

Sierra grew up on a grain and livestock farm near Cerro Gordo, Ill., and was active in 4-H and FFA. So while she’s reporting on agriculture from the home farm, she’ll also be managing her own herd of Angus cattle — which means if she’s writing a story about calving, you can bet she’s also living it, too. Many, many moons ago, I was hired here at Prairie Farmer and allowed to work from my farm because the editors thought it might be useful to have a field editor out in the field. Turns out it was, and I’m super-excited to have Sierra on board living the life she’s writing about.

And here’s the other crazy thing: Sierra is joining our staff in the 180th year of publication for Prairie Farmer. It feels like we just celebrated our 175th last year, but math tells me that was actually five years ago.

Prairie Farmer is the only publication in the United States that’s been continuously published for that long, which is a weighty responsibility for those of us on staff now. But it’s also a deep feeling of commitment to agriculture over all those years. The common thread that runs through all 180 years is an editorial team that’s dedicated to telling the farmer’s story, to sharing information that’s both valuable and profitable, and to doing our best every day. And I’m really excited to welcome Sierra into that tradition.