Beef well done

MOSES LAKE — It was a hot day at the Grant County Fair on Thursday, with temperatures reaching 100 degrees and the National Weather Service issuing an excessive heat warning for much of Central and Eastern Washington.

“Keep hydrated!” emanated from the loudspeakers across the fairgrounds.

There was a sheen of sweat on Rylee Wilson's face as she stood in the Ardell Pavillion of the Grant County Fairgrounds late Thursday morning. She didn’t mind all that much, she said. The Wilson Creek High School graduate and Future Farmers of America member had a pretty good fair this year, winning a grand champion ribbon and belt buckle Thursday morning in a competition with her steer Buttercup.

“I actually won market yesterday with Buttercup and Honeybun,” she said, pointing to her two tan steers standing in a stall of one of the fairground cow barns. “And then I won showmanship with Honeybun (this morning) too. So I’m coming out with four buckles.”

In the ring, Wilson leads Buttercup around as judge Myles Tellefson, a rancher from Warden who raises Angus and Charolais cattle, watched each student carefully, occasionally motioning instructions and asking questions.

“I’ve been judging for probably the last five years,” Tellefson said. “My kids grew up in the show industry. I've taken them all over the United States showing cattle, and they're heavily involved in the National Junior Charolais Association. And I grew up showing cattle all over the United States as well.”

When the round is finished, Tellefson makes a conscious effort to say something positive to each contestant about their animal and the way they handle it. It’s something he wouldn’t do in a bigger show, he said, and it’s a way to ensure that the kids stay interested and keep competing.

“I want to focus on their positives. If I can help them with something that they can get better at as they're continuing to learn to do this, I'm going to point that out,” he said. “I'm going to do it in a positive manner because I want these kids to stay showing.”

Tellefson said he believes, for some of these young agriculture enthusiasts, the relationship with their animals will be a lifeline.

“There's nothing better than kids and livestock. That relationship that these kids have with their animals, the bond that they have, you're not going to find that anywhere else,” he said. “They can have the most awful day at school, or with their famil, but they'll always have those animals. It's a positive relationship. You're just not going to replace that with anything else.”

Tellefson said in Thursday’s competition, he was looking for the student's ability to show the animals. It’s one reason he ordered each FFA student to switch animals until all six entrants had a chance to lead each cow.

“The changing up is to show that you know how to show, and can show somebody else's animal even though maybe they can't show it as good as you could,” Wilson said, confidently. “Mine did pretty good for others.”

That’s the point, Tellefson said, to raise good animals and show animals well.

“It’s the showman’s job to make their animal look the very best,” Tellefson said.

Wilson, 18, said growing up on a 300-head ranch, she’s worked with cattle her entire life. In fact, she’s been showing cattle since she was eight, and spent the last four weeks getting ready for the Grant County Fair by showing her animals at jackpot shows around the Pacific Northwest.

Jackpot shows give young livestock enthusiasts a chance to practice for bigger shows like the county fair, Wilson said. She said that over the last ten years she’s been showing, she has earned a collection of belt buckles and banners.

“I got a lot of buckles, “ she said.

Now that she’s graduated from high school and preparing to start college at the University of Idaho in the fall, she’s planning on making the Western Showcase Jackpot show on Nov. 5-6 her last competition, Wilson said. This Grant County Fair was her last as an FFA student.

“In the jackpot shows, technically, you can show till you're 21. A lot of kids do that,” she said. “But I don’t like to show against 21-year-olds, so I don’t want to be that 21-year-old.”

Even though Wilson wants to become an elementary school teacher, she still wants to come home and help with fair, with shows, with the ranch and keep working with cattle.

And she is remarkably unsentimental about what will happen to both Buttercup and Honeybun, her two prize-winning animals.

“They’ll be somebody’s dinner,” Wilson said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.