North East Alpaca Expo

Jill MacLeod lives in High River, Alberta, Canada where she has been involved in the Alpaca industry since 1991, with the start of her breeding operation, Aztec Alpacas. Jill has served as a past director of the Canadian Alpaca Association, numerous association committees and is currently an active member of the Canadian show committee. She is also an advisor to the Quechua Benefit – a charitable organization focused on assisting the people of the Peruvian highlands. She spends much of her time traveling as an alpaca halter and fleece Judge and holds international training credentials and is also a Senior Judge and judge trainer for AOBA. Jill has been fortunate to judge across North America as well as Europe, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Jill has had a lifelong interest in textiles and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Textiles in 1987 from the University of Alberta. As a certified Camelid Fibre Classer, she spent a number of years assisting the Canadian fibre cooperative in developing it’s quality control systems and product development.

Kathy began her alpaca adventure in 2000 with what was thought as an innocent little comment from her husband regarding an article he was reading on what his college’s past president was doing during retirement. From there, the internet was all it took for the fun to begin. Growing up on a farm and being actively involved in 4-H raising cattle & showing horses, it was easy to see the potential of this fiber animal and to embrace raising alpacas.

She has spent hours volunteering at fleece and halter shows and enjoyed scribing during numerous annual AOBA National Conference Fleece shows. She started the first alpaca 4-H club in Franklin County and has donated her time to coach various 4-H clubs around the state as well as judge 4-H alpaca events. She has held clinics and presented seminars on varied alpaca topics. She’s currently the membership chairperson of OABA and an active member of AOBA, CABO and the Suri Network.

Kathy left her financial planning and investment management job in 2007 to concentrate full-time on completing the AOBA Judge Apprenticeship program and is now certified to judge suri/huacaya halter, performance & fleece. She enjoys delivering her orals reasons in a way that each participant gets meaningful information as to why their alpacas placed as they did reflecting her desire to enhance the exhibitor’s show experience.

Kathy, her husband Earl and their herd of suri and huacaya alpacas, reside at Jefferson Laurel Farm which is located minutes from Columbus, Ohio.