Urban Laughlin
Urban Eugene Laughlin was born in the community of Sherbrooke, PEI in 1931 and he has lived and farmed there his entire life.聽 He attended local public schools, St. Dunstan鈥檚 University and Prince of Wales College.聽 He is a firm believer in the need to remember our past in order to have the wisdom to be productive in the present and to move with progressive steps into the future.
Urban is a family farmer to the core. 聽He and his spouse, the former Mary MacDonald, are well-known for their well run, environmentally responsible, dairy and mixed farm in Sherbrooke, PEI. Both have been strong promoters of rural and farming life in Prince Edward Island and in far-off places.
Urban鈥檚 leadership qualities developed early as a member of the Sherbrooke 4-H Club, where he later became charter president in1948. In 1949 he was the top 4-H livestock judge in PEI and along with a colleague from the Sherbrooke 4-H Club, went on to National 4-H Club Week and judged livestock at the Royal Winter Fair.聽 He was leader of the Sherbrooke 4-H Club from 鈥�52 to 鈥�69.
For 20 years, Urban was a member of the PEI Federation of Agriculture and a member of the Sherbrooke Farm Radio Forum.
Urban was president of the PEI Junior Farmers鈥� Federation in 1954 and charter president of the East Prince Junior Farmers鈥� organization in 1955.聽 In recognition of the tremendous amount of work and personal sacrifice he put into the East Prince Junior Farmers, he was presented with a life membership in 1962, the only life membership ever presented by that group. He was member of the East Prince Junior Farmers鈥� square dancing team, which was Maritime champion in 1957.
Community minded, Urban was secretary of the Sherbrooke School District between 1962-72, councillor for the Community of Sherbrooke between 1979 and 1995, and a foreman of a Supreme Court Jury on PEI on three different occasions.
Urban was part of the Founding Convention of the National Farmers Union (NFU) in Canada in 1969 and played a leading role in forming the first local (#102) in PEI the previous year. Urban is the only NFU member in Canada who has attended the Founding Convention and each of the subsequent 40 national conventions.
Elected to three separate terms as District Director, District 1, Region1 of the NFU, Urban is always a passionate voice for social justice for farmers. He is a committed advocate for farmers receiving the cost of production and therefore he promotes orderly marketing systems for all products. He rejects corporation-style farming as a way of producing healthy food. Nominated by the National Farmers Union in recognition of his astounding contributions to the farm community and farm families in PEI for over four decades, Urban Eugene Laughlin 聽is indeed a worthy inductee into the Atlantic Agricultural Hall of Fame.