Mary-Jo Smith
I was brought up in rural Northern Alberta, Canada. Worsley is a small farming
community and although my parents did not farm I was always helping out on
friends farms. I was a member of 4H Light horse and beef, I rode horses and
showed cattle.
Upon graduating from St. Francis Xavier University with a business degree in 2000
I moved to England and joined Joy Whitehead at Bozedown Alpacas. I was meant
to stay for 6 months to 2 years and I now find myself still here 11 years later. I
found that as most people do I fell in love with the alpacas and found a keen
interest in the breeding program at Bozedown.
I have become very interested in all aspects of the alpaca industry and have
attended many seminars and been involved in a lot of committees in helping to
develop the British industry. I also spent two years as a board Member for the
BAS.
I have also played a large role in developing the Bozedown herd, I have been to
Peru to select alpacas from some of the top breeders in the world on 3 occasions
along with traveling to other countries to see where the UK herd is in comparison to
the rest of the world. I have had opportunity to assess thousands of alpacas in the
process. At Bozedown Alpacas we have a large herd of both Suris and Huacayas
and enjoy the challenge of improving our herd each year.
I am a firm believer in continuing education and with this ethos I attend all the
education seminars and clinics that I can each year with regards to Judging and
alpacas in general.