Amy's Story
Although Grand-View Holsteins wasn't established until 2017, owner Amy Gunderson has a deep past in the dairy industry. She grew up in the little village of Neosho, WI where her and her family had a hobby farm of Registered and Grade American Paint Horses. Her and her sister grew up showing, training and trail riding their family's horses and always purchased their hay from local dairy farmers. Summer time was always her favorite time of the year, especially once middle school hit. Amy helped at Peter Martin's Guernsey Farm during the summer baling hay. Her involvement in the dairy industry was mostly dreaming about being more of a part of it, that was until her junior high school year.
Being active in the Hartford FFA chapter throughout high school, she realized her dream could become a reality. When family friends, Chris and Brenda Conley of High-Gem Holsteins, Neosho, WI offered her the opportunity to show a fall calf at the 2008 Dodge County Fair. "Tinker" is who started it all (pictured Top Left and Center) and Amy was hooked on showing dairy cattle. Her second year she had the opportunity to show a spring Swedish Red x Holstein calf. "Patches" was a very different calibur animal and even though the pair had to compete against all age groups of animals in the "Any Other Pure and Part-breed" category, they came out of the ring of shavings not only winning their calf class, but taking Grand over all the other animals in the division. It was a great end to her Sr. year of high school.
Fall came, and Amy headed off to college to pursue a career as a large animal veterinarian. As with most college students, she made some changes along the way, and pursued a double degree in Animal Science-Equine and Dairy Science. This created a lot of opportunities along the way for her, such as working at the UW-RF Mann Valley Lab Farm in the dairy learning center. This time spent with the lab-farm herd, in combination with dating a dairy farmer at the time and helping him purchase their own cows from the Falcon Sale, increased her love of dairy cattle even more. Her main passions soon became dairy nutrition and genetics. It wasn't long before she made up her mind and right before graduation, she took a position as a relief breeding technician with ABS, Global. Not long after the opportunity of her dreams came and she was offered a position with Select Sires working for CentralStar Cooperative, where she worked as a Relief breeding technician as well as a DHI Specialist serving the North-western WI region. Unfortunately due to some health issues, she had to leave her dream career. This only fueled her passion for her cows at home, and gave her more time to focus on building the herd, still working closely with friends and professional colleges she made while working directly in the dairy industry.
While still in school, she took the dairy judging course, and was able to "judge" the heifers in the upcoming sale. She fell in love with one heifer in particular, Hi-Lo Valley Attic Sahara (pictured below) then owned by Hi-Lo Valley Holsteins. Things went right at the sale, and "Sarah" was purchased and brought home. Before long, Amy recieved the call that Sarah was calving, and after a 2 hour drive in the middle of the night, during a winter storm ofcourse, she was able to see the healthy Gabor heifer calf, later named "Belle" (pictured Middle Left). As things tend to go in life, this wasn't quite where God wanted her to be so she had to leave the girls behind. However, a girl just doesn't know when to give up and with the whole-hearted support and encouragement of friends and family she decided to pursue the dream of her life, owning phenominal dairy cattle of her own. Thus, Grand-View Holsteins was born and it never would have happened without the love, support and influence of the Martin Family, Conley family and the many dairy farming friends, families and customers she's met through the years. Not to mention the numerous "special ones" she had the priveledge to co-own and work with along the way...
Fast forward a few years and she was given the opportunity of a lifetime, and purchased her first animal, from Fetzer Farms. "Jewel" became the first animal purchased and was quickly registered with Holstein Association, shown at the MN State Fair and bred for the first calf to be born with the Grand-View prefix. Today, that one calf has turned into a herd of 4 lactating cows and 4 heifers ranging from a few months old to breeding age, with 6 calves on the way for late 2022-early 2023. Just goes to show how no dream is too big, and with a lot of hard work and dedication, it can be made into reality. This fall, Amy will be getting married and her husband-to-be Philip Merritt also helps make the dream a reality, keep your eyes open to see them both in the show ring this summer with the Grand-View Holstein girls!
