Board of Directors

We are currently accepting board applications for new members. Send an email and let's talk about getting involved.

Rosemary Jedel Graff

Rosemary has a background in teaching and when she and her family moved to Colorado in 2007, she turned their farm into her outdoor classroom. In addition to offering riding lessons and 4-H horse programs for children, she created Farm School, where kids of all ages work, play and learn outside as they ride and care for horses, gather eggs, milk goats, feed the pigs, care for the rabbits, tend to the garden and swing in the huge haybarn.
Laughing Buck Farm strives to include and invite people of all background and abilities and has a therapeutic riding program as well as summer sensory camps for kiddos with ASD.

FarmHer Rosemary continues to find therapeutic benefits in this unique setting and loves exposing kids, adults and families to the joys of connecting with nature, moving their bodies through work and play, and developing relationships with creatures great and small. She founded the nonprofit, Friends of Laughing Buck Farm, in 2018 to develop educational and therapeutic horse and farm experiences for everyone.

Lindsay Gerdes

It’s been my pleasure to call Fort Collins home for the past 10 years. I’m originally from Aberdeen, South Dakota. My children introduced me to Laughing Buck farms nearly 5 years ago as participants in the all ages family farm class with Farmer Rosemary. I was delighted by their experience being outdoors, learning from nature, animals, and gardening. Over the years, each of my four children has benefited tremendously from a slice of life on the farm at Laughing Buck Farm. I joined Friends of Laughing Buck Farms as a board member to help create opportunities for other families of all abilities to share in the experience, culture, and wonder that the Farm brought to my family.

Penny Brown

I love the community that is Laughing Buck Farm. I don’t think I have ever felt so comfortable, welcomed and appreciated as I have at the farm. I have learned so much from the leaders and hope to continue learning and being involved. Both my grandparents had farms and I have wonderful memories of both.

Kids today NEED to see and experience life on a farm!

April Ocasio

I was born and raised in Loveland Colorado, I am a strong empath and humanitarian by nature I'm a fierce advocator for my fellow mankind. I volunteer as much as I can in the equine therapy world! I am a Pisces and I love to bedazzle everything! Including horses!

Helping people understand that they deserve to exist just as they are and everybody deserves to be seen and heard is a passion of mine that grows stronger every day. I fight to give people their voice back or to help them find one they never had! I try to listen to the Battle cry of a survivor's soul so that I may learn how to answer it.

I am a brain tumor survivor, and have two beautiful children along with an incredible husband. Being an adult and diagnosed with sensory processing disorder and neurodivergency, I ride equines for physical and cognitive therapy and realize how imperatively important to the mind body and soul that these types of places are! Riding is like smiling with your whole body! I strive to bear my vulnerabilities so that I can meet everybody where they are at with theirs, no questions and no conditions!

Kathi McGinley

Kathi lives in Fort Collins on an acreage, is married and has three children, three dogs and one very large horse! Her daughter Morgan claims the Autism spectrum and has led Kathi to be a strong advocate to the neuro diverse populations through Easter Seals, Special Olympics, NARHA / PATH International, horticulture therapy, life coaching, Autism Speaks, and our local ARC. Involvement in these various groups helped Kathi establish her business, “ The Eclectic Gardener” to support nonprofit events, life coach neurodiverse populations and the businesses who support those populations.

From Kathi
“I believe I was meant to walk onto LBF for a reason. I feel I have come” HOME” to a diverse farm experience that encompasses all of my senses (a childhood revival)! I hope to help others through farm immersion. As a board member I hope to grow in my knowledge of empowering young and old through horses and gardens, and farm life. It is my hope to be as involved as possible in the growth of this amazing farm. I have many hobbies and love: creating children’s books, cycling, cooking, foreign languages, traveling with RV and hubby, music, and learning– always learning.

If you always do what you have always done, you always get what you have always gotten. 'Normal… is the setting on a washing machine.'"

Lucinda Smith

What first drew me to Laughing Buck Farm was my love of horses, which started as a young girl. I grew up in PA where I rode and even had a horse for a year while in 6th grade (a very special year!) I moved to Colorado in 1980 and it has been many years since I have been connected to horses…. until Laughing Buck Farm.

What I quickly learned is that Laughing Buck Farm is so much more than the sweet equines. It is a place where all are welcomed, appreciated and nurtured. I am thrilled to be connected to this strong community, am learning so much, and love volunteering with the students, animals, other volunteers and great teachers. What I see here is happy kids, in a supportive environment, laughing and playing, growing in self-confidence, and learning to understand and love aspects of the natural world.

I am also honored to have joined the Board and be part of working toward expanded opportunities for kids of all ages to learn and grow through the experiences of life on the farm, and care for animals, plants, and each other.