First-time exhibitor, 12, wins big at fair

QUINCY —Twelve-year-old Kayson Hull of Quincy cleaned up at the Grant County Fair, walking away with seven ribbons, all for one cow. What’s more, this is Kayson’s first time showing an animal at the fair. 

“Yeah, I’m shocked too,” he said. 

Kayson’s Holstein dairy cow, Juliet, won Grand Champion for junior class, Holstein Senior Calf Grand Champion, Dairy Junior Champion, Dairy Reserve Junior Champion, Grand Champion Fitting and Showing, Best of Show Dairy and the big one, Supreme Dairy, according to the Grant County Fair’s listings. 

“My cow did it all, pretty much,” Kayson said. 

Some of that is true, explained Kayson’s mom Kristina Hull. Juliet comes from a registered herd and her breeding gave her the sort of physical characteristics, like a straight back and deep ribs, that play well with judges. But Kayson’s efforts played a big part in fitting and showing, she said. 

“Fitting and showing is all judged on how he clipped the cow, how clean he kept her, how clean he kept her stall, and then how much she respected him in the ring. So no, that was all him.” 

“What’s really odd is that she won the supreme champion as a 1-year-old,” Kayson’s dad Eric Hull said. “That never happens. Usually, it's the older cows that win it. They're so much bigger, they’re so much more developed.” 

Juliet was a little cranky about holding still for a photo Thursday, Kristina said. 

“She was tied up to a stall for a whole week with only this much rope to move, and (since) she's been back, she is loving her freedom. She’s like, ‘I don’t want to do that again.’” 

Kayson is a fourth-generation dairyman, his parents said, and Juliet came from his grandfather’s dairy farm southwest of Quincy. 

“We’ve had her since she was around three months, and she’s 11 months now,” Kayson said. 

“We're so excited for Kayson, and he did such a good job taking care of that animal,” Eric said. 

Kristina and Eric Hull both come from farming families, and they’re making renovations to the dairy farm to start a creamery and make their own cheese, Eric said. Kristina’s father, now retired, had a long history of exceptionally clean milk production for a large dairy company, and the Hulls want to take it to another level. 

“We’re in the middle of construction,” Kristina said. “We just turned in our paperwork, and so we’ll hopefully be certified in two months.” 

“It's really hard to make it as a dairyman when you're selling to a big co-op,” Eric said. “We're really excited. We're hopefully going to help our kids get to experience the dairy, but we're going to sell our own milk direct to people we know, to our neighbors … We want our kids to have that and to experience that.”