RED DEER - The Kemp family, one of Innisfail's most famed pioneer families - and still vital to the community after 137 glorious years, has been honoured with this year's Golden Furrow Award as the Pioneer Farm Family of the Year.
This year's award, established 15 years ago by Red Deer's Sunnybrook Farm Museum and presented on Aug. 17 during the museum's 24th annual Pioneer Days celebrations, honours Central Alberta's most revered agricultural pioneers.
As honoured pioneers for the region, the Kemp family now proudly stands side by side with such past notable recipients as the families of James Bower, George A. Braithwaite, Herve Johnson, Niels Lund, as well as the Swainson and Towers families. Of the 15 families who have been honoured, the Kemp family is the oldest, having first arrived to the region in 1882. The Kemp family still operates a beef and grain farm just outside of Innisfail.
"It means a tremendous amount to me and Rita. It is hard to put to words," said Gerry Kemp, the current family patriarch who received the award with his wife Rita and son Rick before dozens of other family members and friends. "This award makes up for all the 4 a.m.'s I woke up to go and help milk the cows."
Michael Dawe, a prominent Central Alberta historian who has been on the award selection committee since it started, said the Golden Furrow Award honours pioneer families who are long time residents of Central Alberta, have contributed to the community and have an active connection to farming.
"They have to meet those three criteria to receive the reward," he said. He said one of the main reasons the Kemp family was chosen this year's winner was because they were one of the "very first" farm families in Central Alberta.
"They came in 1882 where there was hardly anybody farming here. William Hazelwood Kemp had two cousins who had been surveyors in the summer of 1882 and he met up with them in Edmonton and they said, 'we just finished surveying a really nice area. We think it is a great area to settle. You want to come with us?'
"And he did."
The Kemp family went on the create the first school in Central Alberta, a log structure at what now is the west side of the West Park neighbourhood in Red Deer. In the 1890s William Kemp settled in Innisfail and established several businesses, sat on town council and was active in the community. He later went back to farming but died suddenly in 1921, leaving his wife Katy to support the family by taking in boarders and renting out rooms in the family's large family home.
The generations that followed have kept the family tradition of farming and community service, serving for a multitude of local groups, including the Innisfail Co-op, Innisfail Agricultural Society, Goldeye Foundation, International Farm Exchange Association, Innisfail and District Historical Village, Dr. George House Preservation Society, and the Innisfail Curling Club.
Although retired, Gerry, the grandson of William, and wife Rita still passionately support community causes, stepping up two years ago with a $10,000 donation to save the historic Sinclair House during a time when preservation efforts for that project appeared to be faltering. Three decades earlier the couple were the driving force to save the historic Dr. George/Kemp House from a demolition order.
Today this proud and distinguished family legacy is being carried forward in Innisfail by Gerry's son Rick and his family. Rick operates the family grain farm just a kilometre from the northwest corner of the Innisfail Golf Course. He proudly attended the Aug. 17 award ceremony with his wife Wendy.
"I am very pleased and overwhelmed to have this award bestowed on our family," said Rick. "I am very pleased we have three sons on our farm and seven grandchildren and I think the farm will go on a while longer yet."
