One spring Diane Kroeker made the pigs of Deerbank Farm famous by getting their picture onto ABC’s Good Morning America show. She was operating the Manitoba Farm Vacation Association’s “Meet the People” tours at the time. During a tour of New York City in the fall of 1982, she had a meeting with her NYC travel agent, who happened to be a personal friend of the television host on Good Morning America, produced by the ABC network. She thought little of the meeting at the time, but the following spring she got a call from her travel agent.
Good Morning America was looking for some unique travel destinations to talk about on the popular US morning show. Could Diane help out by sending some material about farm vacationing in Canada?
She promptly put together a package promoting Farm Vacations in Manitoba. Among the photos she sent to New York was a picture of some newborn piglet sucklings attached to their mother. The picture had been taken at Deerbank Farm.
When the show was aired, the host of Good Morning America told his TV audience he had some very unique visitors that morning.
He interviewed two other people about interesting destinations elsewhere in the United States, and then had his friend the travel agent – Diane’s friend – come onto the set. “Got an interesting place to visit?” the host asked.
“You bet,” the agent said. “Go to the middle of Canada to the Province of Manitoba and visit the Jorgensons in Morris,” he said. “You’ll see a lot of farm animals there.” On the screen as background to the conversation was a picture of sucklings attached to the sow. Had there been a soundtrack to go with the photo, it would have been the squeals of little piglets and the mother grunting contentedly.
That’s how in 1983 the pigs of Deerbank Farm became famous.