2024 Cowbelle of the year award

Congratulations to our 2024 AES CowBelle of the Year, KATHERINE KUSSMAN-COLLINS
   

This lovely lady is the President of our AESCW Unit and is killing it!! For that reason, she has been selected as 2024 CowBelle of the Year.

Born in El Centro, CA she was active in 4-H and FFA throughout her school years. Her next stop, Cal Poly, SLO, graduating with a B.S. in Dairy Science Management. She met Dave Collins while in school, more about that later.

A friend from college convinced her to move to Amador County where she completed her teaching credentials and worked as a student teacher, moved on to Special Ed teacher at Preston School of Ind., and then Mule Creek retiring a few years ago.

Now, back to Dave. After meeting at Cal Poly, they became reunited in Amador County and they decided to marry. She became a step mom to Ryan and Travis, two boys that Dave was raising. Years later, Ryan married Sara and they have twin girls, Aubrie & Macie. Travis married Suzanne and has Blair and Ely. All live close and Katherine is busy helping with everyone’s schedules.

Katherine became a member of our unit in 2021, full of enthusiasm and ideas. She was in my sights as someone that had a ton of energy, great concepts for growth of our unit. I asked her to be my VP, show her some things I knew and move her into President. She jumped in with both feet and never looked back. We are so fortunate to have such a strong leader for our AESCW Unit.

Katherine is very organized, not afraid to delegate, coming up with fresh new ideas to build our message and gain new members, travels to all CattleWomen & (Men) events to stay on top of things. “Forward motion with the throttle on” would be my description of her. 

Congratulations Katherine, you are the 2024 AESCW CowBelle of the year!!!! 

Bio submitted by Jill Curran