She taught kids about ‘cow Fitbits.’ Teen, dad die on way to her college orientation

Anna Teachman didn’t grow up on a farm but she loved watching the dairy cows at local fairs, so she joined 4-H.

She wrote not long ago about longing “to spend time on a dairy farm to learn firsthand about dairy animals and how they are cared for.”

Anna came to know a lot about cows.

Then, she got to be the 2017-2018 Washington State Dairy Ambassador. She finished up her duties just a few weeks ago.

A sash and crown replaced her taking-care-of-the-cows clothes.

Over the last year she traveled across the state talking with business groups, milk drinkers and thousands of school children. She answered questions about what cows eat, how they’re milked and why they wear those tags on their ears.

On Dairy Day in January she talked to state legislators in Olympia about strengthening and protecting dairy farms. She handed out dairy products, too.

One of the “fun facts” she wrote in her “Dairy 101” on the Dairy Farmers of Washington State website: “Many dairy cows wear pedometers, or cow Fitbits, to record their daily activity level. This enables a dairy farmer to be alerted if a cow takes more steps or less steps than usual, which might indicate a change in her well-being.”

Anna planned to make agriculture her life. She chose Oklahoma State University in Stillwater as her college and ag communications as her major.

Anna and her parents, Mike and Lori, and her younger sister, Kara, turned the nearly 2,000-mile trip from Washington to Oklahoma into a family vacation, according to a post on Anna’s Facebook page.

They drove through California and headed toward the Midwest along Route 66, the post says.

In Tulsa, Anna’s mother and sister boarded a flight home; Anna and her dad drove on toward Stillwater.

On July 8, about 30 miles from Tulsa on HIghway 51, a 2015 Chevy Silverado veered out of its lane and hit the Teachman car, a 2004 Nissan Vibe, head-on, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

The pickup driver, Timothy M. Mullin, 57, of Cleveland, Oklahoma, was treated for injuries at a hospital, according to the Tulsa World.

Anna’s father died at the scene after being pinned in the wreckage for more than two hours, the highway patrol said.

Anna was flown by helicopter to St. John Hospital in Tulsa in critical condition, according to KOMO in Seattle.

Everyone involved in the accident was wearing seat belts, authorities said.

“We actually had flown into Denver, Colorado and we were in Denver when we received the phone call,” Kara told KOMO.

Anna did not survive a traumatic brain injury and died on July 12, according to the Tulsa newspaper.. Her family decided to donate her organs.

“We both knew that if Anna could’ve made that choice, she would’ve done it,” her sister told KOMO. “If she had been standing there with us, she would’ve because she just loved everybody and that would totally be what she would do.”

Anna’s death stunned those who knew her through her work on behalf of Washington state’s dairy farmers.

In a memoriam, Dairy Farmers of Washington wrote of her “passion” to share the story of dairy farmers with the public, a message, family members say on a GoFundMe page, she shared with “confidence, grace, and knowledge.”

“I feel so blessed to have spent the last year with this outstanding young lady,” Scott Kinney, the group’s CEO, said in a statement shared with The Capital Press agriculture weekly and other news outlets.

“Thank you, Anna. Even though you were with us for just a short time, you made an immeasurable difference to so many lives.”

A message on Anna’s Facebook page on July 13 died asked friends to pray for her mother and sister as they followed two hearses to the airport in Tulsa to begin the Teachman family’s last trip together.