Aug 27, 2024
By Border Queen Harvest Hub
The Border Queen Harvest Hub (BQHH) is excited to announce the hiring of Becca Murry from Argonia as its executive director.
Murry hit the ground running on her first day in her new role by visiting all five farms on the Oxford Farm Tour, which had more than 100 people from as far away as Kansas City visit the farms on June 29.
“I was like many of the other 100 people on the tour that day who had no idea the Elam Lavender Farm and Oxford Pecan Patch was right in our own backyard,” Murry says. “We toured the Flying Toad shop on Main Street, then visited their high tunnel where they use geothermal piping to regulate temperature. I saw FFA students shearing a sheep, tasted delicious lamb at the C Bar C ranch and learned how the Kilts Farm grows grapes in their vineyard for a winery near WaKeeney. It was a great way to start this new role.”
In her first week, Murry also attended her first BQHH Town Hall in Blackwell, Okla., where producers, processors and distributors gathered to learn about BQHH and begin strategizing ways to engage their business and community.
“After the presentation and the Q&A was over, we thought people would leave but they didn’t,” Murry says. “They gathered in small groups and talked about the challenges on their farms and how they could work together. As one farmer later told us, he had been to a lot of meetings but had never seen people stay around and talk like that afterwards. We finally had to start turning the lights off since our time was up; they didn’t want to leave.”
Murry will work closely with the BQHH leadership team, which is comprised of Stacy Davis, Sumner County Economic Development Director; Jill Kuehny, KanOkla CEO and Vision Caldwell member; Meagan Cramer and Kylee Stout of Kansas Farm Bureau/Shop Kansas Farms; and Rick McNary of Shop Kansas Farms.
“This is the perfect job for me,” Murry says. “I enjoy meeting new people, creating ways to help consumers connect with local farmers so they can purchase the food they raise and being on the ground floor of a transformational movement in our society.”