Medicine Hat area farmer and rancher Nichole Neubauer speaks to CHAT News in July 2024. Bob Schneider/CHAT News

By Jesse Gill, Eli J. Ridder

IN THE COMMUNITY

Cypress County farmer named to Alberta Order of Excellence

Jun 11, 2025 | 3:44 PM

Cypress County farmer Nichole Neubauer — known as an industry advocate and a passionate educator — is among nine people named to the Alberta Order of Excellence this year.

“When I received the call it barely seemed real,” Neubauer told CHAT News in an interview Wednesday.

The award, the highest civilian honour the Alberta government can bestow, places Neubauer among elite company.

Former prime ministers Joe Clark and Stephen Harper, premiers Peter Lougheed and Ernest Manning and Medicine Hat businessmen Malcolm Sissons and Bill Yuill are among the order’s 229 recipients since 1979.

Neubauer owns a working farm near Irvine with her husband Mark. It was first established in 1910 and has been owned and operated by a member of the family ever since.

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The family homesteads south west of Medicine Hat.

Through the Irvine School, Neubauer runs the Irvine Agricultural Discovery Centre that aims to teach sustainable agricultural practices and build capacity in youth to ensure food security into the future.

She’s hosted over 20,000 students at the centre, run in partnership with the Prairie Rose School Division that nominated her for the award.

The 52-year-old, the frequent subject of a CHAT News series on the impacts of drought, received an honorary applied baccalaureate degree from Medicine Hat College last year and also has several business awards to her name.

The Neuabuer family was the winner of the BMO Farm Family of the Year for Cypress County in 2016.

But, Neubauer said her work is not done yet.

“I feel that, in some ways, I have so much more to do,” she said.

“I feel that the award has been given…to show the strong support of the importance of empowering youth and the importance of agriculture education and teaching kids about sustainable food systems.”

Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani revealed the list of the order’s 2025 recipients on Tuesday.

It includes Geoff Cumming, Brian Felesky and Stephanie Felesky of Calgary; Sine Chadi, John Day and Doug Stollery of Edmonton; Lyn Radford of Red Deer; and John Scott of Longview.