Young County 4-Her sets America Royal national livestock judging contest record
Team places third overall
Writer: Kay Ledbetter, 806-677-5608, skledbetter@ag.tamu.edu
Contact: Justin Rogers, 940-549-0737, justin.rogers@ag.tamu.edu
GRAHAM – A Young County 4-Her set a record, and her team placed third recently when they represented the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service’s District 3 and Texas 4-H at the American Royal 4-H livestock judging contest held in Kansas City, Missouri.
Justin Rogers, AgriLife Extension agent in Young County, said the team qualified for the right to compete at the American Royal in June at the 2018 Texas 4-H State Roundup, where they finished third overall in the team division.
In the livestock judging contests, each contestant is asked to judge cattle, swine, and sheep and goats, then give reasons for their placements. The individual and teams are scored and ranked in each contest as well as overall.
“The Texas state 4-H contest was very close this year with first through third places separated only by five points,” Rogers said. “Young County was the Texas 4-H champion in the swine judging division.”
The first-place team at state goes to the National 4-H Contest at the North American International Livestock Expo in Louisville, Kentucky, and second place goes to the National Western in Denver.
At the American Royal, the Young County team competed against 4-Hers from 16 other states. The overall winning team was from Indiana with a score of 2,274 points. A California team placed second with 2,256 points and the Young County team scored 2,229 points.
The team, consisting of Cade Anderson and Victoria Richards, both of Graham, and Boomer Whitaker and Phoebe Rogers, both of Newcastle, garnered a first in cattle, third in sheep and goats, third in reasons and fifth in hogs.
Individually, Phoebe Rogers was high individual in cattle and reasons, and set the contest record with a 48.17 average on six sets of reasons. She was also fourth in sheep and goats, and fifth overall.
Whitaker was eighth in cattle, 12th in hogs and 10th overall; Richards was ninth in cattle, 17th in reasons and 16th overall.
“We in AgriLife Extension in Young County are proud of the efforts put forward by this team and how they came together to improve on each class judged and each reason set talked in our preparation workouts,” Rogers said.
“A special thanks goes out to Young County 4-H parent leaders, Young County Farm Bureau, Spirit of Texas Ranch and Texas 4-H for their sponsorship and all the workout stops that we had that enabled the team to perform at this level.”
