The Lethbridge and District Agricultural Society has announced its first board members. (Photo: Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Lethbridge & District Ag Society announces board members, return of Aggie Days

Dec 11, 2025 | 1:34 PM

A pair of major announcements has been made by the newly reformed Lethbridge & District Agricultural Society.

Cody McIntosh has been hired as the group’s first director.

He says he is proud to see that every member of their leadership team has a background in agriculture.

For himself, McIntosh was raised on a farm in the Picture Butte area, and later went on to do much of the same work around promoting agriculture that he will take on in his new role.

“I went away for almost 20 years to the Red Deer area where I worked with Red Deer County and their Agriculture Services Board. We were doing a lot of similar initiatives – trying to engage the agricultural community, create some awareness about agricultural concerns, advocate for agriculture, as well as engage with the urban community as to what is happening with agriculture,” says McIntosh.

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Lewis Baarda has taken on the role of board chair.

Similarly, he grew up on a farm in the region and worked for many years as an agricultural researcher.

McIntosh and Baarda are joined by the following board members:

• Shane Janzen: CEO Successor at Independent Crop Inputs. His experience includes working as an independent agronomist, gaining experience working with irrigated, dryland, specialty, and broad-acre crops. He is a Certified Crop Advisory and Professional Agrologist who now focuses on ag-retail.
• Georgina Knitel: Family Business Advisory and founder of Ag Plan Inc. She is a professional Agrologist with over 25 years of experience in agriculture, finance, transition and succession planning, and mediation.
• Maureen Perlich (Vice-Chair): Partner at Perlich Bros. Auction Market. She has led promotion and advertising for the auction market from 2002-2024 after previously working as an agricultural lender.
• Cody Scheirlinck (Treasurer): Grew up on a purebred cattle operation and has over 10 years of experience with the 4-H program, having sat on both the Alberta Junior Boards and a Canadian Junior National Board. He is currently working to complete a degree in accounting.
• Carly Kleisinger (City of Lethbridge representative): Has worked in various capacities across the City of Lethbridge since 2007, including as Director of Community Services for the past three years.
• Ryan Thomson (Lethbridge County Representative): Director of Operations for Lethbridge County, leading initiatives in efficiency, sustainability and service excellence. He has over 20 years of leadership experience in healthcare operations.

Since the board has just formed, Baarda says that most initiatives and events at the Ag Society are still in the early planning stages.

A big focus for him is ensuring that more people are connected to agriculture.

“We’ve talked about education and advocacy for agriculture. There’s a lot of people that, 30-50 years ago, we were one generation away from the farm,” says Baarda. “Well, now, we’ve got a lot more people that are more generations away from the farm that maybe don’t have that connection.”

McIntosh adds, “With the growth of the community like this, we’re becoming that much more urban, and yet, Lethbridge is surrounded in every direction with agriculture. The disconnect between urban and rural continues to grow, so it’s very important to share what’s going on in agriculture.”

The Ag Society is recruiting community shareholders. You can learn more at ExciteLethbridge.ca

Aggie Days

There is one event that the Ag Society was ready to announce, and that is the long-awaited return of Aggie Days.

It is an educational event where children in Grades 4-6 will be able to learn more about agriculture.

They will partner with the not-for-profit organization, Agriculture for Life.

McIntosh says, “Ag For Life has got an interactive trailer that the kids can go through and see what life on the farm is like. There’s going to be some commodity groups represented to talk about their interest, if it’s dairy or egg producers. Farm safety will be a primary topic.”

The goal, he adds, is to get kids interested in agriculture at a young age.

“The time to do any kind of education and awareness is young and it’s focusing on youth,” says McIntosh. “The latter generations, maybe, are not as willing to accept new ideas, but if you can get these young guys and girls interested and talking about the farm, they’re the ones bringing these messages home to their parents and grandparents.”

The last edition of Aggie Days was in 2019. The 2020 event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it never returned due to financial concerns.

McIntosh tells LNN that there has been a growing appetite for programming like this in recent years.

Aggie Days takes place March 25-26, 2026.

READ MORE: Lethbridge & District Exhibition split into two new organizations