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Show ,You Needn't Be Old to Raise Cattle; Child Menace' Hits Livestock Show j Youngsters Have Won 4 Championships in 10 Years. By ARNOLD PATTEN (Heleused by Western Newspaper Union ) HICAGO.-Once upon a V time you had to be a graybeard cattleman or your entry didn't stand a chance of winning the top honor at Chicago's Chi-cago's International Livestock Live-stock exposition the grand champion steer award. . Nowadays you've got to be a youngster, and probably a girl at that. For if recent experience ex-perience is any criterion, the grand award at this year's show December 2 to 9 may very likely go to a beardless youth who will thereby prove that modern scientific cattle raising can compete any day with the old fashioned fash-ioned rough-and-ready tactics. Four times in the past 10 years the championship has gone to animals ani-mals shown by youngsters, who in earlier years were politely tolerated by the adult showmen. It's quite an honor, too, because the winning steer is selected from among two or three thousand of the finest beef animals North America can produce. pro-duce. Dropped Barriers in 1916. The child menace began in 1916, when a special competition was introduced in-troduced for steers, lambs and pigs owned and exhibited by farm boys - """IP J IN LOS ANGELES Verl Anderson, An-derson, 18, of Treemonton, Utah, took top honors in the Great Western Livestock show with Snicklefritz, shown here, a nine-month-old steer. 1 ws,-,.,,.. I ' ! l I V i i - MJm j iX 1 YOUNG WINNER, AND A GIRL AT THATI-Irene Brown, If year-old tiler from Mercer county, I llinois leaves the show ring with her grand champion Aberdeen Angus steer. and girls between the ages of 10 and 20. A few years later and oldsters still rue the day top winners of the junior contest were permitted to compete in open classes. Despite a bit of jealousy, these veterans were a little proud of farm youth on that dramatic day in 1928 when 12-year-old Clarence Goecke, a 4-H clubber from Iowa, trudged into the ring and defeated all contenders con-tenders with his Hereford baby beef "Dick." Like all winners, "Dick" was auctioned auc-tioned off at premium prices to a hotel or railroad, or maybe it was a steamship line. Anyway, he brought a new all-time record of $7 for each of his 1,150 pounds! That meant S8.050, and the proceeds were used to found a Hereford herd on the Goecke farm out in Marshall county, and to provide for the education edu-cation of Clarence, his brothers and sisters. Today all Iowa farm folks know Clarence as a member of the Goecke family firm, successful cattle feeders. feed-ers. Brown Wins Next Year. The same year young Goecke won the championship, a reserve champion cham-pion ribbon in the junior classes went to another Iowa strapling, Elliott El-liott Brown. Next year Elliott came back and won the grand championship champion-ship with an Angus steer, "Lucky Strike." This steer brought even a better price $8.25 a pound, which is still a record. Today young Brown has a purebred Aberdeen-Angus herd. Not until 1935 did another youth come through. At that year's show 19-year-old Cleo E. Yoder, also from Iowa, took the grand championship with "Pat's Blue Ribbon." Yoder is now farming in partnership with his brother, and they're building up a herd of purebred beef cattle from the head start they had in 4-H projects. Just to prove that beef cattle raising is becoming a sissy business, the 1938 championship went to of all things a 14-year-old girl! Men and boys alike hung their heads in shame when Irene Brown, an Illinois Illi-nois lassie, paraded her 1,130-pound Angus steer around the ring. Later he was sold for $3,785.50. The only proud male in the stands was D. A. Brown, Irene's father, who runs a 400-acre farm in Mercer county and maintains a purebred Angus herd. Break Record This Year. This year, according to the exposition's expo-sition's management, young America Amer-ica is coming back stronger than ever. Boys and girls from 13 states have listed entries for 480 baby beeves which they will exhibit in the junior contest. Most youngsters come from midwest states, and others oth-ers from Montana, New York, Oklahoma Okla-homa and Texas.. The graybeards won't really be too angry if another 'teen-age exhibitor exhibi-tor wins this year. Get them off in a corner, away from the huff and bluff of the show ring and they're apt to be pretty happy about the whole thing. Tomorrow's farmers farm-ers are starting young, you see, and what father doesn't hope his son will be a better man than he was? |