“We can’t do it all” moment prompts career change for nation’s best

Kelly Gellie was determined not be just a “farm hand” when she decided to leave her job as an accountant and join her family’s sheep enterprise full time.

Maroona accountant-turned-wool grower and champion classer Kelly Gellie says she was one of those kids who grew up “hating the farm”.

“I was born and bred on the farm, but was never going to come back to it, I went off to Melbourne to university,” she said.

“Dad likes to remind me how I hated the farm, but I think it was because we always had to do work on the weekends.”

But since marrying her farmer husband Darren Gellie 12 years ago, Kelly has fallen in love with wool growing on their Western Victorian farm. So much so she has quit her off-farm job as an accountant to focus on the family’s sheep enterprise.

And when father-in-law Kerrin decided to step back after classing the Gellie’s 17.5 micron flock for half a century, Kelly decided to step into the void.

Studying through Shearer Woolhandler Training Inc at Hamilton, Kelly topped the class for 2023 and then classed her clip for the first time last November.

Kelly Gellie won the Golden Stencil for 2024.

Then, on Tuesday, she won the prestigious national competition, the Golden Stencil 2024 at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.

AWEX chief executive officer Mark Grave said the event, now its 12th year, brought together very talented people who were coming into the industry.

Kelly said the experience was exciting and grew her knowledge about the sector. “It was really good to meet some of the key players,” she said.

The award comes at a tough time for fine wool growers with prices depressed from where they sat 12 months ago.

With the dip in returns, Kelly said the family was focused on keeping costs down, and enterprise diversity with their cropping program. And wool was being sold as harvested, instead of stockpiling to see if prices rose, to help with cashflow, she said.

Despite the poor rates, Kelly said she was glad to be on the farm.

She decided to leave accounting and work day-to-day in the farm business after “being a burnt out by Covid and remote schooling” the couple’s young children.

Like many farming families, Kelly said she and Darren, along with her in-laws, had to discuss how the change would work.

“We realised we just couldn’t do it all, it got to a point where it all got a bit too much and we needed a change and different way of doing life,” she said.

“Also, I wanted time to be able to enjoy the kids while they were little and working on the farm allowed more time for that,” she said.

Darren has taken the lead on the farm’s cropping enterprise, while Kelly has charge of the sheep business.

“When I came back we did discuss how I would be involved in the day-to-day decision making, I did not want to come back and be a farm hand,” she said.

“There have been a lot of positives but also a few challenging moments over deciding what we are doing day to day.” Kelly said defining roles on the farm helped the family adjust to the change and to follow their passions. And, it would seem, where their champion skills lay.