Knick Receives Top Farm Bureau Sales Award
Editor’s note: The following story was written by senior staff writer and photographer Nicole Zema with the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.
Since 1996, Jade Knick has been serving Farm Bureau members. And during those 30 years, she’s sold insurance policies that celebrated family milestones and provided coverage against calamity.
In March, she was named the 2025 Ralph Stokes Career Achievement Award Honoree at Virginia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co.’s annual Sales Conference. This is the highest honor reserved for VFB sales leaders, named for the late Ralph Stokes, a 32-year Smyth County agent and disabled veteran.
Knick had never heard of Rockbridge County when she moved to Virginia for her first job after graduating from West Virginia University in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture.
With that degree and a willingness to work with farmers and rural residents, she was hired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers Home Administration, now known as USDA Rural Development.
After five years conducting property inspections and appraisals for the government, her office relocated to Augusta County. But Knick wasn’t leaving Rockbridge County, Retired agency manager Jack Ingle hired her as a Rockbridge County Farm Bureau agent where she was mentored by now-retired agent Geoff Goodbar — a friend, neighbor, fellow churchgoer and 2009’s Ralph Stokes honoree.
“Geoff really took me under his wing and shaped my career,” she said. “We both took the approach of educating people about what they were purchasing.”
VFB’s celebrated sales star is more comfortable behind the scenes. As Virginia’s population grows, Knick quietly brokers connections.
“I like to connect people in the community,” she said. “And see them succeed.”
Knick resides at Breezy Hill Farm with daughter Harper, 23. A nearby dairy family are tenant farmers, grazing their replacement heifers on pastureland, alongside the Knicks’ senior horse Hunter and Irish Dexter cattle.
Her grandfather sold insurance and her dad worked in banking. She accompanied them to houses and farms on business, learned to photograph properties, inspect equipment, follow up on claims and ask relevant questions.
The annual award is an honor Knick “dreamed of” but never expected to receive.
“I was fortunate enough to have met Ralph Stokes many years ago and watched so many deserving agents receive this award,” she said. “This is the highlight of my career, and I will cherish that moment forever.”
Knick said she’s always been “a fixer” who finds joy in taking care of people around her, making sure they’re covered for the unexpected.
While those traits come naturally, she also knows how it feels to be blindsided.
Knick’s husband, Bill, was 58 when he succumbed to a massive heart attack in 2013. Harper was only 10.
In the aftershock of Bill’s loss, friends and colleagues brought so much food, Knick ran out of space in two refrigerators.
“Then I came home one day and there’s a refrigerator at the back door,” she said. “These are the kind of people that we have out here. Poof! A refrigerator appears!”
Grief is a transformative teacher. In moments of difficulty, Knick learned that simply showing up is more meaningful than knowing what to say.
She recalled going to meet a client who lost the interior of their home to fire.
“I went over there, sat on the sidewalk and cried with them,” Knick recalled.
The devastating 2012 Derecho and its aftermath was a tough experience that brought out the best in Farm Bureau’s colleagues and members.
“It taught us to stay present in members’ lives,” she recalled. “Working side by side during these challenging times.”
Knick also has visited many widows and widowers to personally deliver life insurance benefit payouts following a death.
She remembers one widow was taken aback by the dollar figure on the check.
“I didn’t know it would be that much,” she said.
“Well,” Knick said. “He loved you that much!”
