C2—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, July 19,1980
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Dorris keeps a dose tab on the supplies in her truck. Her Chevy Luv has become familiar to farmers in the southern end of Lancaster County.
Dome Diggs,
BY SUSAN KAUFFMAN
Staff Correspondent
It has long been a common practice for women to be
taking an active part in many of the roles on the farm;
Recently, however, these roles have also included
previously totally male professions. For almost two
years, there has been a female large animal veterinarian
buzzing over the roads in Southeran Lancaster County on
her way to attend a milk fever case, a difficult calving or
to perform a routine vaccination or dehorning. LAN
CASTER FARMING checked with this spunky lady to see
if she could share some of her experiences as a large
animal vet.
Dome Diggs is a twenty-seven year old, curly-haired
strawberry blonde who works as an associate vet for
Pennstar Veterinary Service owned by Carl G. Troop. She
is one of two associates working with Troop in the
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large animal vet, practices patience
Quarryville area business. Dome came to work for Troop
in November of 1978 after four months’ experience m.a
large and small animal veterinary establishment in
Bucks County. How she finally arrived in the heart of the
Dutch Country is an interesting subject. With charac
teristic energy and humility. Dome related how she chose
to be a large animal vet.
When she was small, Dome grew up in suburban
Philadelphia. Occasionally, she said, she would be lucky
enough to be invited along with a neighbor playmate to
visit a relative’s farm in the Summer. She said she loved
being on the farm these few times. When she was Jiot yet a
teenager, her family moved to Cecil County, Maryland,
but she said she was still not any closer to the farming
community than when she lived in the Phildelphia
suburbs. She had no farm-background friends in
and thus had no real access to a farm.
The last of the sugar
peas are the target for
Dorrie here. She enjoys
tending her garden when
she's off duty.
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Here Oorrie checks one of Bill Arrowsmith’s Jerseys. She prepared for hei
wopk as a large animal vet by building up her muscles and physical stamina.
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When she had completed high school she studied at
Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, as an art major.
She was especially interested in being a professional)
cartoonist. But she found that she plight not like the
pressure of deadlines for coming up with specific ideas
which a successful cartoonist would have to constantly
‘deal with. So she took some time to analyze her potentials
and her interests and decided that since she was doing
well m biology and science courses and always had liked
being out of doors and interested in cows, she decided to
transfer to Penn State.
After her first year at Penn State she applied to the
University of Pennsylvania and the University of Georgia
in veterinary science. She was accepted to both. Because
the labs are closer to the living quarters at the University
(Turn to Page C 5)
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