Nora Springs Resident Who Blew the Whistle on Pure Prairie Poultry’s Cruelty Wins National PETA Award
For Immediate Release:
April 8, 2025
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
On Sunday, Nora Springs resident Jeremy Schmidt received the 2025 Nanci Alexander Activist Award—one of PETA’s highest honors—for risking his career by speaking up for suffering chickens and reporting Pure Prairie Poultry’s decision to leave thousands of chickens on trucks for as long as five days with no food or water outside its now-shuttered slaughterhouse in Charles City. Schmidt was presented with the award by Alexander herself—an animal advocacy powerhouse who founded the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida in 1989—during PETA’s “High Tea and Highballs” 45th-anniversary celebration in Miami. Photos from the event are available here.
Schmidt, a 38-year-old Iraq War veteran who worked at the facility, was alarmed when the company left its contract farms without feed for millions of chickens—and said he “knew we had to get PETA involved” after executives gave employees conflicting accounts about the birds’ welfare. The information Schmidt provided helped prompt Iowa and Minnesota officials to feed millions of starving birds and sparked an ongoing federal investigation.
“No living being should ever endure what those chickens did when Pure Prairie Poultry left them to starve to death, and I’m grateful that PETA was there to fight for them,” says Schmidt. “I’m honored to be recognized by PETA and proud to have spoken up for those who couldn’t advocate for themselves.”
“By exposing the plight of millions of starving chickens, Jeremy Schmidt helped spare many of them from even greater suffering,” says PETA Vice President Daniel Paden. “PETA urges everyone to follow in Jeremy’s footsteps by never standing silently by should they see an animal in trouble.”
Schmidt, an avid outdoorsman, was born in Mason City and has lived in Nora Springs for more than 30 years. He attended Nora Springs-Rock Falls Community School (now Central Springs) before pursuing a criminal justice degree through Kaplan University. He shares his home with his wife, Cambria, their three children, and three beloved canine companions: Stella, Sully, and Lucy.
The Nanci Alexander Activist Award is presented annually to a compassionate individual whose actions on behalf of animals are helping to change the world and move PETA’s vital work for animals forward. Once Schmidt exposed Pure Prairie Poultry’s abandonment of millions of chickens amid bankruptcy—just two years after the company had collected over $45 million in taxpayer subsidies—lawmakers demanded accountability from the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the agency’s lack of oversight.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kitsfor people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
