Susan Lee of Jerome, Idaho, was inducted into the Idaho Dairy Hall of Fame at the United Dairymen of Idaho 2006 Annual Meeting held in Boise in November.
Lee’s many activities on behalf of the dairy industry during her many years in the business are a testament to her selection into the Idaho Dairy Hall of Fame.
Susan Lee was born and raised in upstate New York. She received her first 4-H heifer, a milking shorthorn, in 1958. She has worked on the farm her entire life and during her childhood was active in 4-H and FFA, winning several awards, including Premier Breeder and National Junior Champion.
Lee moved to Jerome in 1980 to join her husband Marty. Before she left New York, she purchased 85 cows from her parents and brought them with her to Idaho.
She has been a member of local, state and national breed associations since 1980 including the Magic Valley Holstein Club, the Idaho State Milking Shorthorn Society, the Idaho Holstein Association, the American Milking Shorthorn Society and the Holstein Association of America.
Lee’s dairy has received many Milking Shorthorn awards including Highest Producing Milking Shorthorn Herd in the United States. She bred and developed two all-time breed production leaders and bred and developed the highest lifetime production Milking Shorthorn cow.
Lee has participated at the National Conference of Interstate Milk Shippers, she has served as a GMS evaluator for ABS and served on the organizing committee for the National Holstein convention held in Boise in 1999. She has also served as a delegate to the National Holstein meeting. Lee was named Idaho State Holstein Dairy Woman of the year the first year the award was given in 1990.
She has served in many capacities for the American Milking Shorthorn Society including on its board of directors, which she served on for six years, with three of those on the executive committee. She also served as chairman of the Breed Outlook Committee and the Milk Production Committee and is currently serving as chairman of the Type Classification Committee for AMSS.
Lee is a member of the Magic Valley Dairy Herd Improvement Association and the Idaho DHIA. Lee served as the local DHIA president and the interim Idaho DHIA manager. Lee was selected to serve as the national DHIA president, earning the distinction as the first woman to serve on the national board and the first woman to serve as president.
She has served on the United Dairymen of Idaho Board of Directors since 1986. As a member of the UDI Board of Directors, Lee served as chairman of the Idaho Dairy Products Commission from 1989 until 2002. During her tenure as a member of the UDI board, Lee has served on numerous committees and was one of two dairy producers from Idaho to develop a memorandum of understanding between the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Environmental Quality and the Idaho State Department of Agriculture to protect ground and surface water with a program for dairy inspections that has since been used by other states to develop similar programs.
Lee lives in Jerome with her husband, Marty. They have a daughter, Laurie, and a son, Marty John. PD
