From the collegiate level up to the national, three Cattlewomen presidents share their experiences as women passionate about the cattle industry.
Meet the Presidents
Nikki Weston, American National CattleWomen (ANCW)
Randolph, UT
15-year tenure with Cattlewomen
“I grew up a city girl, and I married a rancher who was the sixth generation,” Nikki Weston explains when asked about her history with the cattle business.
Now watching her grandkids serve as the eight batch of Westons to love ranching, she said the cattle industry has truly been ingrained into her life.
When she attended her first Utah Cattlewomen’s Association meeting alongside her mother-in-law, she was struck by the organization’s dedication to creating beef ambassadors. She helped start a program for her state, and eventually, found friends at the national level with the organization. She hasn’t looked back since.
“We need to look after each other, because what we do is hard,” Weston adds of her love for ANCW.
Debbie Costa, California CattleWomen (CCW)
Lodi, CA
33-year tenure with Cattlewomen
With four generations of family behind her in the cow-calf business, California native Debbie Costa has never known anything but the beef industry. It was also her family that brought her to her state cattlewomen’s organization.
Her mother and mother-in-law were members who took her to her first local meetings. Costa was elected a unit president at a local level prior to attending her first CCW meeting.
“I think I’ve always been impressed with the quality of the women and the accomplishments of some of these women,” Costa explains. “It’s kind of special—that’s how I’ve walked away from almost every meeting that I’ve gone to.”
Malana Unsell, Oklahoma Collegiate CattleWomen (OCCW)
Bakersfield, CA
4-year tenure with Cattlewomen
When she first came to Stillwater, OK, as an animal science and agricultural communications student at Oklahoma State University (OSU), Malana Unsell wasn’t looking to fall in love with the beef industry.
She had shown bottle calves and a few steers growing up, but her family had a hog farm. Friends of friends encouraged her to join OCCW, and she dove in headfirst. Unsell has been an officer the past three years and was elected president in 2025.
“Being a student coming from out of state, I didn’t have a lot of family close. I remember going to the meetings and just feeling like I had a family on campus,” she said of her love for the club.
During her presidency, she’s made it her mission to help other girls in similar situations feel at home on the OSU campus with the help of OCCW.
WLJ: As we are looking at the beef industry as a whole, what do you think the role or impact of your organization is?
Nikki: There are so few of us that actually produce food. We need to come together any place that we can. There is something really powerful about a group of women with the goal of promoting the beef industry and our producers. The American National Cattlewomen focuses on legislation, education and beef promotion. That’s our bread and butter. Those are the main things that we focus on. We call them our pillars, and all of our programs feed into one or more of those areas.
Debbie: At the state level, our role is to host state events and support our local units. We make sure that they have the support for things that would be difficult for each individual unit to participate in. It’s important that we share ideas at the state meetings. We do a book every year that’s called the Round-Up. The unit presidents report on what they’ve done through the year—from beef promotion, Ag in the Classroom, fundraising or even fun little stories. In December, we have an awards breakfast. We learn again what the different good programs are, so it’s shared throughout the state and people get new ideas.
Malana: I think the role that we play is really in supporting and promoting the beef industry. Whether that be hosting an event that’s open to the entire university to come learn about beef and why it’s a sustainable protein source, or just helping young ladies learn how they can be an advocate.
One of our main goals is to challenge our young ladies and help form them into leaders within the beef industry. We want to bring them opportunities to learn from people who’ve come before them, whether that be cattlewomen or cattlemen, helping them see how their futures are in the beef industry and how they can support the beef industry, even if the job they take out of college isn’t directly correlated to the beef industry.
WLJ: Why do you think it’s important for women—particularly those in the beef industry—to come together in organizations like this?
Nikki: I’ll tell you my very favorite part about this organization. For all the good we do in all different aspects, my favorite part is the women. When we get together, we can accomplish a whole lot. Cattlewomen have strong opinions about a lot of things, but you turn them loose and, boy, can they accomplish.
Debbie: One thing we are doing by going to schools and talking to the parents and the kids is we’re passing on real life experience that they otherwise would never know about. It becomes more real when they’re talking to somebody that truly has experience, instead of just reading about it.
Malana: I think a reason why it’s important is because there’s strength in numbers. By seeing there are others who also support the cattle industry and taking the time to teach us to be better advocates.
At the collegiate level, it helps us build connections for our future. I know there’s a lot of us in our club who would love to go work in the beef industry, but sometimes we don’t always know what those opportunities are. So, I think for us, a big reason is making these connections, so then later on, we have that network of people to go back to.
WLJ: What does it mean to you to be surrounded by such a wide variety of powerful women passionate about the beef industry?
Nikki: That goes back to having a group of women with a common purpose who are all working toward the same goal. Whatever their part is in the beef and ag industry,—how great it is to all come together where there are so few of us. Personally, I want my grandbabies to be part of the ranch, and I work hard in this organization, because that’s how I do my part. ANCW is how I build the industry so my grandbabies can be here.
Debbie: I like being around positive people, people that are progressive but still respect and look at the heritage. They still try and do traditional things and yet move forward. To me, that’s always important: to know the art, the history and to also be moving forward in the ways we do things at our operation in our daily lives.
Malana: It means a lot to me. Our biweekly Thursday meetings are one of the highlights of my month, whether that’s just getting to meet with our members and hear their stories and why they’re so passionate about the beef industry, or meeting other collegiate groups. Recently, we had Kansas State University cattlewomen come to Stillwater. Getting to see their passionate group of women and why they’re wanting to continue to advocate for the beef industry has really showed me that we are the future of the beef industry, and the future is really bright.
WLJ: What leadership opportunities are available in your organization? How can women get involved?
Nikki: Cattlewomen is a really great place to learn leadership. It is where I started my leadership, and now I serve on several boards where I just started as a committee chair on a local level. Now, 15 years later, I never would have imagined I’d be here, but it has been such a privilege and a pleasure to work with these ladies.
It’s really easy to get involved. You just go to our website (ancw.org), jump in and find what your passion is. No matter what your passion is, there’s a place for you in the cattlewomen organizations. Be a part of your local and your state chapters, because they all feed together up to nationals.
Debbie: We elect the president, vice president, second vice president and secretary treasurer. There are a bunch of committee chairs. I think we have 15 different committees. We have, in the last few years, gone to the FFA Convention for the state, and we’ve also gone to Ag Day at the Capitol, so women throughout the state can go to these events to help or they can be on a committee.
We have our CCW website (cattlewomen.org). Once you’re a member, you can fill out a form with all your contact information and what you’re interested in. Then, if one of the committees comes open, you can choose what you’d like to do. If you get on the website and write a note to us and say where you live, you can join a local unit, then you’ve also joined the state organization.
Malana: We have our officer positions. I believe our application goes out in April every year. We have interviews for that; normally it’s during our Eat Beef week. We offer a lot of volunteer opportunities. We attend CattleCon in February, and then we try to work closely with other clubs on campus to have different opportunities for our members to be involved and to learn more about the beef industry.
We post on our social medias when we’re going to be having our meetings, and then we also have a GroupMe, where we send out reminders about different events we’re working on. But there are many ways to get involved, whether that be attending meetings or going to volunteering events.
WLJ: What advice do you have for women in agriculture right now?
Nikki: Get involved in your organizations, in as many of them as you can. It is important that we have a voice. And there are so many forces against us. We just need to come together in everything that you have a bandwidth for.
Debbie: This has been said many times, but it’s very true: tell your story. Share how you got involved in agriculture, your day to day. If you tell your story, it opens up questions and a lot of times it’s very positive.
Malana: Don’t be afraid to take a chance. I am a person who really likes to stay in my little comfort zone, and I think the biggest advice someone had given me was don’t be afraid to take a chance and step outside of your comfort zone. Whether that’s taking an internship that’s far away or even deciding on where you want to go to college, taking those little chances when you have the opportunity to—especially at a young age—is really important. It’s okay to make mistakes sometimes, that’s life, and we’re not perfect. It goes hand-in-hand with stepping out of your comfort zone when you get the chance.
1 Comment