Greetings from Mineral Point! Summer-like weather is here, the crops are in, lots of hay being cut, and our moisture is about perfect. I know that’s not the case everywhere, so we are feeling pretty fortunate and blessed. Our sympathy goes out to the countless victims of tornadoes this past month. Our prayers are with you. I can’t pretend to imagine that!

Most every weekend there has been a demo and I enjoy them more as time goes on. I guess I feel like I learn from them also.

On the 25th of April, Brock pitched the perfect game on his high school baseball team. That brought some excitement. I’ve been teaching him a new throw called the flying mare. We’ll bring that out in the playoffs. Five days later, it was announced Osama Bin Laden was taken out. That was very news worthy!

In May, we were invited to a Wisconsin State Fair get-together to promote our State Fair Auction. Brock spoke there and got to meet Governor Walker. Pretty awesome event.

We are in the middle of AI-ing cows and getting great weather for that. We’ve started serious work on our State Fair steers like everyone else. Appetites seem excellent. We’ll se how they progress! Lauren’s busy with gymnastics and Brock’s baseball team has regional finals tonight.

Hope to see you all at the VIP in June.

It’s been a really fast moving spring even though it looks like February here. None of the crops are in around here.

As for Clinics, it’s been the best yet. Big turnouts and lots of good questions. I went to a 2 day clinic in North Carolina, and like last year, it was a favorite of mine. Great setting, great coordinators and large group of kids who wanted to learn. The next weekend we had a large turnout at Elkhorn, WI. Brock came along and assisted me, and Reid Suddeth came and helped Mark Johnson with his sheep demo. That was all good.

Then I went to Oklahoma and Texas to look at Denver sized steers, watched the heifer show at OYE and than flew to Ohio Beef Expo to help John Reed do a demo. Large turnout there too, great event. I had a chance to see a good cattle friend Wayne Forsythe, who turned 90 years old this year. I then flew back to Oklahoma City to watch the Sat and Sun Steer show. Strong show and the top 3 were extra nice. I took a nostalgia trip and drove to the Ozarks and visited a ranch were I purchased a bull 30 years ago-NERO. He actually got me started in the Club Calf Business.

Lauren also had her State Gymnastics 5 hours north from home. She competed very well, but didn’t make the podium. However, she did have her personal best. She was happy about that. We will look forward to giving it another try next year.

Early April I did a demo at Tipton, Iowa with Tracy Coffland and I had one at Reynolds, Iowa. Brock assisted me at that demo as well. Then Brock, Jacee May (my neice) and I left for Memphis, TN to a pickup truck. We went to see the Elvis Presley Mansion. Brock and Jacee headed home and I headed to Eastern TN to look at cattle.

Brock’s new puppy Frank broke his back leg and he had to have surgery. Two pins and a plate. OUCH. But his making a nice recovery.

Just finished a great 2 day event in Austin, MN. We had a fitting boot camp on Sat April 16th. Huge turnout and great interaction. Then one day 2 I judged their Livestock Market Show. In between I drove back home to watch Brock at his Jr. Prom. Good time.

Til Next Time…good luck to everyone and their projects and hope to see you at a demo coming your way!

Greeting Folks,

I’ve been absent for quite a while and have been treated for Blog-A-Phobia and I’m much better now. Haven’t done so good on this blog, but will have a stronger commitment in 2011.

It’s been a really nice start to 2011 for our family and the show cattle business. We took a couple Market Steers to Denver in mid-January. Lauren had a 1334 lbs Monopoly Steer which was raised by the Stanley Family in Western Iowa. He was in class 6 and stood 4th in class. We simply got overpowered in that class. There were 3 really good steers in that class above us. Kyra Stierwalt, Maggie Benese and Macy Goretska. Lauren’s steers name was Speckles, he had a brockel face. He missed the sale by one placing so we will try again next year. Lauren was pretty sad to put him on the truck. He had an awesome disposition.

Brock had a steer sired by Shaken-Bake (a Friction Son) He named him “Ricky Bobby” and purchased him last March from Luke Doris and David Mozingo at their sale in Stillwater, OK. He was raised by Randy Fawcett of South Dakota. He weighed in at 1315 and showed in class 5. He won his class and later that day was selected “Grand Champion.” That was a pretty awesome feeling. Brock came close in 2007, but got Reserve to an outstanding steer of Lance Unger of Indiana, so this was very gratifying to win in 2011. Kaiti Robinson of Conroe, Texas was 2nd to Brock and was slected Reserve Grand.

The Stock Show folks really treat the kids great. On Friday morning they took Brock and Kaiti and their steers to the Brown Palace Hotel downtown. This is a long time tradition. The kids and their calves were on display for a couple of hours for people to come and take a picture with the steers. The public loves it and ask many fun questions. A really neat experience. We had a really nice lunch there and then we all came back to the Stock Show for the Auction that evening.

At the Auction Brock’s steer brought $50,000 and Kaiti’s brought $33,000. Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce purchased Brock’s steer. We truly appreciate the buyers that come and support the kids. They are great and make the event very memorable.

Brock and Lauren’s steers were out of two different phenotypes and fed differently. Lauren’s steer was longer bodied and he was on Finishing Touch. Brock’s steer was very easy fleshing, he was grown on Fitter’s Edge and at times we spiked it with Full Control.

On Saturday at the NWSS the kids showed their prospect steers. Lauren was 2nd in her class and Brock won his class. In the Final Drive Emma Vicklund was selected Grand and Brock won Reserve. Emma’s steer was pretty outstanding and I think sired by Heat Wave. Brock’s steer was sired by Carnac and we bought him from Barry Nowatzke who got him from Tracy Goretska. Brock’s steer is currently on Fitter’s Edge.

On Sunday, we as a family, along with Bruce Suddeth and Anthony Beck, decided to just chill. So we headed up to mountains to Breckenridge. Once there we settled in at fun little bar/restaurant and watched the Packers advance to the Super Bowl. It was pretty fun and exciting. Yeah Packers!

My family, Bruce and Anthony headed back to Wisconsin and I headed south to Oklahoma and Texas to look at cattle. It was a good trip and I found a few good Fort Worth/Denver sized calves.

On the weekend of Feb 6th I went to Norfolk, NE to judge the Sweetheart Showdown. The numbers were not great, but the strong quality on the top. After the show on Sunday, I drove to Omaha to a motel near the airport to watch the Packers win the Super Bowl. Life was good.

Monday A.M. I flew to San Antonio for the Honor Show Chow Event and Expo, we attended meetings there on Monday and Tuesday. Its like being with extended family with these folks and we all enjoy our roll.

Wednesday I went back to Omaha and got into my vehicle to head south to Oklahoma for another demo. Got to see several sets of cattle on the way. Then on Friday we had a great, very interactive group from Ada, OK that had lots of questions and covered a lot of material. On Saturday I got to judge the cattle show with Jon Gevelinger assisting. Again the top end was very strong.

On Sunday Jon and I headed to North Texas to look at a few sets of sale calves and got back to Northern Oklahoma by Sunday pm and enjoyed the 70 degree weather. I spent all day Monday looking at cattle in OK and made it as far North as Tulsa by evening. Lots of snow up in the part of the state. Early Tuesday I started heading home, looked at cattle along the way and made it back in time to watch Mineral Point Wrestling Team qualify for Team State. All day Wednesday and half of my Thursday we clipped for families who were heading to the Iowa Beef Expo. Brock left Friday after school to go to Iowa and the help the Core Family, a yearly tradition. Saturday AM I left to head that was to help some customers.

We were represented well all day and ended up with the Grand Steer. The steer was sired by Heat Wave that Barry Nowatzke and myself bought from Nic Riemann and Blaine Rodgers. We sold him to Cole Larson. Thanks toTravis Shanks and Ryan Mitchell for selecting this steer from us. Scott James from WI clipped him and did his usual great job. Thanks to all.

Brock and I drove home Sunday PM and it got pretty icy about 10 miles away from home but otherwise the trip was good. Monday school was cancelled due to the ice. Kids were not sad. Looking forward to upcoming clinics and shows. Hope you and your kids have a chance to make it to one of them.

Since my last blog, Mineral Point has had a lot of humid weather, we’ve gotten a good bit of moisture, but not as extreme as parts of southern Iowa. The crops look the best I can remember.

On July 11th, our family all went to the Madison airport to see our German foreign exchange student, Natalie, off. She, with her mom and grandma were heading home back to Germany. Natalie spent approximately 11 months with our family. She was a great kid and a pleasure to have here.

I got to do a clinic at the Simmental Junior National in Des Moines on July 16th. Had a very large turnout. My nephew, Jon Gevelinger, helped me with the clipping and fitting clinic. After the clinic, Jon, Kylie Willard, and myself judged the fitting competition. There were 14 teams and we placed a very competitive group of kids. We placed the top three teams and they announced the winner Friday evening at the banquet. Thanks Jon and Kylie.

Saturday the 17th, I went to Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan to watch Lauren in a gymnastics tournament She finished 3rd overall on the floor and vault. Lauren and her teammates performed well and seemed very focused.

After the competition, I went to Indiana to look at cattle and back to north of Milwaukee that evening to clip a county fair steer on Sunday.

We are just wrapping up most of our county fairs. We had 4 Grands, a Reserve, and a 2nd place, so we had a pretty happy group of young exhibitors.

Just 2 weeks until the State Fair starts. Good luck to all, then we’ll start gathering calves for the 2010-2011 season.

Bob May

There has been a long absence from blogging for me, lots going on, but probably oversight is the biggest reason, sorry Purina.

It’s been a very good spring and early summer in large parts of the country. Water is in abundance in a very large area of the Midwest, too much in many cases, we’ve had trouble getting hay made at all here. The only good haying was just before Memorial Day… lots of grass though.

The clinics this spring have been great. I went to one in North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, several in Wisconsin and Iowa. Most always the kids and parents ask lots of questions. Hopefully, they are as informative as the participants want and need.

I went out west show calf shopping in late May and found what I thought were some really good cattle, so well see in the fall.

Flew to St. Louis for my 3rd VIP event. I met up with the Purina folks and the ambassadors of each species. We had eight 1-hour sessions on Tuesday, June 15. I was teamed up with Dave Guyer to discuss selection. Hopefully, we made it very informative, but also had a lot of fun doing it. Dave makes it a lot of fun. That was great.

On Day 2, I was teamed up with Kirk to do clipping and fitting again. It was very enjoyable. Kirk and I have been friends since we were pretty young and competed against each other then. Our families are still competing against each other and are still great friends. The VIP ended at noon that Wednesday June 16th and I flew home that evening. On Thursday + Friday, I clipped on customer’s cattle that were headed to the Maine Junior National.

Got to judge the Iowa Summer Beef Expo on Saturday, June 19 in Des Moines. There was a nice set of cattle there. The top end was very nice, had great ring help in Nicole Rathman, Mandy Kolehows, and Bailey Core.

I hooked up with a longtime friend in Paul Clapp, had supper, and headed home. I got to spend most of Sunday with my kids for Fathers Day. Perfect! They got me a couple Will Ferrell movies for a gift.

Brock headed out with the truck + trailer to Spencer, Iowa that afternoon for the Maine Junior National. Lauren and I hung out. Early next morning, Lauren and I left for Spencer and I dropped her off and went on to look at some cattle in the area. On Tuesday, Brock and Lauren each competed for team fitting on their respective teams of 3. There were 13 teams total in the intermediate division. Lauren’s team ended up 5th and consisted of Lauren, Kennedy Core, and Kylie Elder…‹ great job girls! Brock’s team ended up 2nd, and‹ his team was made up of Brock, Bailey Core, and Cole Clanton. Their team had won this contest for five years in a row and was beaten by P.D. Miller, Skyler Miller and Taylor Dorsey. Great job, guys! You did an awesome job.

Very noteworthy was the way the Maine Junior National was run. It was fantastic, and I think the cattle from top to bottom were the deepest I have seen in the last 8 years. The kids, Lauren especially, were not ready to go home after 5 days (their dad was). They made some great lasting friends at those events ‹ five days well spent. What a great family event.

We’re done A.I.-ing cows and got the bulls out. Brock’s working on growing State Fair hair and Lauren’s got softball and her steers for the fall.

Well until the next blog, good luck with your projects for county and state fairs. Hope you achieve your goals. If you do, be thankful, if not, push forward, your day will come.

Hey Folks,

It’s been awhile and it has been a very busy winter so far. I haven’t been doing a very good job at keeping up with my obligations to the blog. My apologizes. We had a lot of snow, ice and cold in most of our country and I am looking forward to an early Spring. Ground Hog says so.

We’ve been to Denver and Ft. Worth lately. Denver treated us well. Bailey Core showed the Reserve Grand Maine heifer in the Jr. Show. The heifer was a Sooner heifer we raised. Congratulations Bailey! You have done a “stellar” job campaigning this heifer all year.

We were fortunate enough to have sold the Grand Chi Market Steer to the Schnoor Family from Chowchilla, CA. This was a steer that my daughter Lauren showed as a calf at the Badger Kick Off and was offered for sale at that time. Thanks to the Schnoor Family for your confidence in us and congratulations to1 3 year old Sydney. She showed the steer as well as any 18 year old could. The steer’s name was “Howdy.”

Lauren’s 1st Denver produced her a Market class winner with a one eyed steer by Heat Wave. His name was “Stitch.” Lauren also had the Grand Champion Prospect Steer which was a Monopoly raised by Bob and Ron Kinneally of Bernard, IA. His name is “Lewie” and he is for sale. Or you could call him “Cool Dude” like the judge Jary Douglas did.

Brock won his Prospect Steer class with a Heat Wave Steer raised by Jeff Boddicker from Newhall, IA. This is the same steer that won the Badger Kick Off. Brock’s Market Steer stood 4th.

Congratulations to Bailey Core who also had the Reserve Grand Market Animal with her Market Heifer.

Sorry my blogging absence, folks! This fall has gone by unusually fast. We are in the middle of getting our set of show heifers ready for our November 28th sale at Muscatine, Iowa. We’ve got some of the best clipper help, Shane Linsey and Luke Doris, coming to help with the final stage of clipping heifers.

I put on a couple clinics at AK-SAR-BEN and helped judge the fitting challenge. There are a lot of very talented kids out there learning to fit at a young age. In all of my years of being around show cattle, that was my first AK-SAR-BEN event. Great place.

At the end of October, we took two steers to Kansas City and also helped families who we sold heifers to. We ended up with the Champion Maine Heifer (one we sold to Bailey Core) so she got to go out for Supreme. Great job, Bailey. Sydney Schnoor was Supreme with her Angus heifer. We were pretty excited because both of these heifers came from our 2008 Divas & Donors Sale.

Brock had the Grand Market Steer with a black Heat Wave steer out of an Ali x Full Throttle cow. He weighed 1329 pounds. We approach these shows hoping to win, realizing that we may not, knowing the sun will come up tomorrow if we don’t, and it will still come up if we’re lucky enough to win. We learn to enjoy the moment because we may not pass this way again. We are very thankful the steer was bred by Wayne Lautner and bought from Mark Anderson.

It is Tuesday and we just got back from Louisville. We had three heifers each stand 2nd and one stood 4th. The steer show was really strong. Sarah Vickland had Grand and Bailey Kroupa had Reserve. Those two had really good calves. I thought this set of steers at Louisville were very deep. Good luck with the sale later this week, kids!

The prospects will start coming out next weekend and we can start all over! Good luck to all!

I just got back from 2 weeks of traveling – we watched the heifer show at the Iowa State Fair on Tuesday, August 18th. We raised the champion commercial heifer. She was also 3rd overall for Bailey Core. Congrats Bailey! This heifer was a Sooner x Heartbeat that came out of our Divas and Donors Sale in 2008. The steer show was excellent on Wednesday the 19th. I witnessed the usual very competitive show. Those cattle sure run deep in quality.

I spent several days looking at cattle in Nebraska and Wyoming before going to clip a steer and a heifer for the Colorado State Fair. Colorado had the deepest set of show steers I have ever seen there. The heifers had not arrived there yet by the time I left. We looked at many sets of club calves on our way home. The rainfall across the whole west and midwest looks to have been excellent.

Finally, made it back home and need to get caught up and get ready for cattle sales this fall. Brock’s football team lost last night and Lauren shows her lamb at our county fair on Saturday. Just got news that another heifer we sold last year was named Supreme Champion at the Colorado State Fair. Congrats to Taylor Hett for your success. Good luck folks on your new purchases for 2009-2010!

Greetings from Wisconsin….

It’s been a pretty action-filled two weeks here in Wisconsin, and I am sure it’s been busy for many of you, too. We spent last week getting ready for our State Fair. Earlier this week we went to Ohio to clip a steer for that State Fair. He won his class for the Hattrick Family, and they did a great job of feeding and getting hair on that steer.

Brock won the Chi division and the Cross division at the Wisconsin State Fair and then won Grand Champion overall with his Crossbred named Gris. Both of his steers were Heat Waves and both were on Honor Show Chow. A customer of ours, Lexi Beck, has Reserve Chi.

After being gone for 4 days, I had a lot of catching up to do. The weather has turned kind of humid here, but the rainfall has been excellent and the crops look better than I can ever remember. (The fall leaves will be spectacular for our tourists!)

We weaned our heifer calves early this year since the weather cooperated and we had no sickness. We have the deepest, most powerful set of calves that I have ever started with. I am looking forward to presenting this group.

Tuesday, I will be heading to the Iowa State Fair to watch the heifer show and the Wednesday, the Steer Show. Then I will head out West to look at calves and clip for the Colorado State Fair. I need to be home for Labor Day weekend since Lauren will be showing her lamb at our County Fair.

Brock’s football practices have started and he missed the first week because of State Fair. He will probably play center and nose guard. Then soon he will be trying for his driver’s license. I am actually looking forward to that since it will be a big help for us for him to be able to do some errands. He’s pretty excited too.

Good Luck to those yet having to compete at your state and county fairs and best of luck this fall on your search for next year’s projects.

P.S. Check out Brock at the Wisconsin State Fair! http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/53087232.html?video=pop&t=a&bctid=CLIP_ID_104979

Hey Folks!

Another really pleasant week in here in SW Wisconsin. Unusually cool. The crops look really good right here, but strong winds and hail took about 40,000 acres just to the south of us. The crop farmers say the need is heat!

We just completed our County Fair run and now we’re focusing on the State Fair cattle. I thought the County Fair cattle quality here this year was pretty strong.

I’m heading to Ohio to clip a steer we sold last year. I haven’t been out that way for a long time. Looking forward to this.

Congrats to everyone for their County Fiar performances and good luck to all going forward at your respective State Fairs.

Don’t forget New Denver date for nominations are Sept 15th.