It takes a lot of hard work to win an award nearly 100 years in the making — and also help from family and neighbours.
“It’s humbling, there’s a lot of other deserving recipients other than us,” said Brian Miller, after he and wife Debbie and their sons received the 2019 BMO Farm Family Award for Foothills County at the Calgary Stampede on July 8. “You are only as good as your neighbours. For us, the Wards, the Wedderburns, Imlers, the Flanders and the rest… If you’re short of seed, you run over to your neighbours and grab it, for example.”
Brian and Debbie Miller live on the same quarter-section that Brian’s grandfather Ervie Miller homesteaded in approximately 1921.
Ervie was a surveyor from Ontario and the property, located northwest of the now four-way stop on 32 Street, caught his eye, but first he had to serve his country.
“He came out to survey the land before the war (First World War),” Debbie said. “He drove horses in the war and he came back and bought this land."
The Millers now have a cow/calf operation and mixed farm of 4,000 acres, which they work with neighbour Larry Ward. The majority of the land is leased around the Foothills and southern Alberta. They also run a full-blood Simmental cattle operation in partnership with Ted Shacklady.
Brian spent a year with Junior A Calgary Canucks before taking over the farm full-time with his brother Ervie in 1979 after dad Bob retired.
But Brian had been farming on that land long before that.
“I was farming when I was, I don’t know, not very old,” Brian said with a chuckle. “Things were way different you had little tractors.
“It would have been really cool to have my grandfather and my dad (Bob) see the evolution of the farm equipment. Those guys thought when the tractor came in for the horses it was a big deal. My dad has seen it all, but he didn’t get to see GPS and Autotrack.”
Bob passed in 2007.
He didn’t need GPS, Bob was a natural at keeping things straight on the farm.
“He used to give us heck —‘Drive straight, drive straight; you’re over-lapping,”’ Brian said with a laugh.
Brian took over the farm on his own in 1991, when his brother Ervie took over the Imperial Esso operation, now Miller Supply.
However, there’s still plenty of Millers there, including his wife Debbie.
Debbie and Brian went to high school together in Okotoks, but the spark didn’t ignite until she was in college and Brian was playing hockey with the Canucks.
They have been married 44 years, and Debbie, who taught at Okotoks High School and then one year at the Comp when it opened, has been the backbone of the farm operation. And also keeps the crew well fed.
“I’m the chief cook — I have spent a lot of time making suppers, making lunches,” Debbie said.
Lunch usually means sandwiches, fruit and vegetables, which she delivers to the field. At night, supper -- the full meal deal.
Their son Marty lives in Okotoks, but he works full-time on the farm.
“My first memories are riding along in the combine with dad and I would fall asleep in the seat,” Marty said with a laugh.
It’s all part of being family. With mom teaching full-time, Brian had to babysit and still get the chores done.
“I made a bed for them behind the seat out of coveralls, and the two boys (Marty and brother Jaret) would go to sleep,” Brian said. “And that wasn’t a very big tractor…”
Jaret, a member of the Okotoks Junior B Bisons Wall of Fame, works off-farm but comes home to help during harvest, seeding and other busy times.
Marty wants to keep the family farm going. He’s the fourth-generation of Millers to work the land.
“I don’t know any different,” he said with a laugh.
A farmer saying he or she doesn’t know any different is like Einstein saying he might dabble in math.
They know a whole lot.
“There’s calving in the winter time, hauling bales, fencing, welding, fixing windbreaks, cattle shelters…” said Marty, who graduated from Olds College with a farm management diploma.
There could be a fifth generation of Millers.
Marty and his wife, Kaylea, have two girls and a boy.
“They love coming out here to the farm,” Marty said.
Jaret and his wife Tara's two children also love the farm.
Brian said the Millers have received extensive help from their hired hand, Paul Herr for 30-plus years.
However, Brian is concerned it is going to be tougher for families to farm in the Okotoks area as the town grows and Calgary is fast approaching.
But farming is in the family’s genes.
“If you’re a farmer, you’re a farmer,” Brian said. “It seems like it’s in your blood. Once you’re in it, you’re in it for the long haul."
