Ann Edgington

As we enjoy the fall breeze & colorful autumn leaves, let’s also enjoy getting to know our October Women of Wool feature, Ann Edgington! Ann was born and raised in Woods Cross, Utah to a 3rd generation sheep rancher. Her parents are the late Hatch and June Howard. Ann’s dad was the only son of David Howard and inherited the sheep. Although, he was handed down a lot of debt as well. He ended up having to sell off his sheep to get out of debt and leased his property to other ranchers. Over time and with a lot of work he was able to build up his herd again and ran around 2400 sheep. Ann is the 4th of 5 children. She loved growing up in the sheep industry. She has fond memories of feeding dogie lambs and driving the truck at a very young age while her dad stood in the back throwing hay to the sheep. (There may have been a few minor accidents that made this stand out!) She also remembers most of her vacations growing up were driving to wool grower conventions since her dad was very involved in that as well. The biggest highlight though, was time spent in the summer at the ranch. Ann went to college at BYU where she met Chad Edgington, and they were married a year and a half later. Chad was finishing his master’s degree in exercise physiology at the time and ended up getting a job at LDS Hospital where he worked for 10 years. Unfortunately, Ann’s only brother Steve, who was running all the sheep on the operation, passed away suddenly. Chad ended up leaving the hospital and going out to help with lambing, which was a few weeks away. As it turned out he loved working with the sheep so Chad and Ann ended up running one of the bands of sheep. Her sister JaNae and her husband Sunnie started running the other band because they were already part of the operation but had been primarily running the farm. It was a change for their young family, but they always felt it was a change for the better. Being involved with the sheep and ranch has been something they could do as a family. It has provided many unique opportunities for their children to learn about hard work, has developed many great associations with others in the industry, and has given them a sense of pride taking care of the land and livestock. The hours and work load have been much different than when Chad was at the hospital and their lives have been very busy. Chad ended up leasing property and growing their operation to lambing 4,000 ewes and running 6 summer bands. They have 7 children and 7 grandchildren and love the blessing that being involved in the sheep industry has been in their lives. Ann, your beautiful smile brings such joy to us all within the sheep industry!