Temple Grandin Coming to Bonnyville

Rednecks with a  Cause book world renowned autism speaker for Feb 2018

“When I woke up this morning, I never, ever would’ve guessed that Temple Grandin would be coming to Bonnyville!” Gary Mostert, president of Rednecks with a Cause, held back emotions as big as his stature as he announce, exclusively to LCN, that the organization had booked the speaker to come to Bonnyville in February of 2018. “I want to cry!”

With the confirmation, Mostert quickly called up the Centennial Centre to book the field house and imagines it’ll be packed. “The C2 is booked, it’ll be a ticketed event and we’ll determine prices later.” Mostert explains the news is still very new, “her forte is behavioural and visual intervention. She has a huge agricultural background.” Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a consultant to the livestock industry on animal behaviour. Mostert says he’s even more excited for her to come to Bonnyville, in rural Alberta, where farming is one of the biggest economic industries around. He even envisions being able to invite students, from Lakeland College, in the livestock program.

“This woman is purely, the best!” states Mostert, “the amount of kids, teachers, parents, and doctors that we’ll be able to help, by bringing her in is immense. It’s always been a personal goal to bring her to town.” Dr. Temple Grandin is known throughout the world as the spokesperson for autism; she is cited on many publications, is an author, a speaker and video producer. In 2010, she was the subject of an award winning HBO documentary, which starred Claire Danes.

Mostert says to help drive attention to the engagement, he’ll be riding his motorcycle throughout northeastern Alberta and stopping at every school along the way to let students and teachers know they’re invited to the event. “I want to gain as much excitement as I can for this event. I want everyone, in the rural communities, to know about it and have an opportunity to come,” Rednecks with a Cause was founded on the principle of helping students in rural communities, that can sometimes be left out of programming that’s available in larger metropolises.

Mostert wanted to note that the soccer club, graciously released a date they had booked for the engagement, “as soon as they heard about it, the president of the soccer club, right away, changed their date and allowed us to have the venue.” The event will be held in February of 2018, more details will be released as the event nears.