Click pictures for larger version
Joy & Lee Kerby’s House
 
Smokey Mountain Bull
 
Smokey Mountain Farms Supper
 
Tennessee Football
 
Tennessee Football
 
Louisville Mainring
 
Byland Afterglow
 
The Cates Farm
 
The Brits
 
The One Armed cowboy at Rodeo
 
The Holt-Ragsdale - Milestone Event
 
Joy doing a spot of porch sitting
 
Show Me Farms
 
Show Me Farms - Don Collop
 
Show Me Farms - The Mayse Family
 
A Sculpture identifing the Chisholm Trail
 
Hilltop Farm - Megan Miranda
 
Mexican Buffet
 
11th World Shorthorn Conference
Shorthorns and Technology - The Real World Alliance

New: World Conference Newsletter 2005 - click here to for PDF
The 11th World Shorthorn Conference and tour took place in the USA in November 2004 starting in Atlanta, Georgia on 4th November and finishing in Sherman, Texas on 21st November. 89 delegates from 8 Countries participated in the different stages of the Conference and tours. The UK contingent was 16 strong, consisting of David and Shirley Baynes, John and Paddy Teasdale, Frank Milnes, Stuart Durno, Major John and Anne Gibb, Charles and Sally Horrell, Dan and Linda Bull, Derek and Cindy Steen, John Scott and Sandy Scarth . The tour covered 3500 Miles and took in a total of almost 40 events, including farm visits, tourist attractions, and social evenings hosted by various Shorthorn Breeders and enthusiasts. The company and hospitality were outstanding throughout the whole tour, and I think everyone arrived home in need of rest, recuperation and a few days of fasting to lose those added pounds.
Our arrival in Atlanta at the inaugural reception was a chance to meet up with many old friends and acquaintances from previous tours. Our trip the next day took us through Chatanooga and whilst there was no dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer than to see Lee and Joy Kerby’s Rocky branch Shorthorns in the beautiful setting of the Smokey mountains. Lee and Joy’s recently built house in the old traditional style housed a collection of shorthorn pictures and prints which must be one of the largest in the world. The evening cook out supper at Smokey Mountain Farms in one of the most picturesque settings was a wonderful occasion, and also one of the most memorable. Our host, Walt Dickson had a stuffed Chianina Bull standing in the lounge of his house. The bull weighed in at 4,000lbs and stood 75 inches tall at the shoulders. All the questions about the bull’s pedigree vital statistics etc were easily answered. The only unanswered question remaining was – why?
We were back at Smokey Mountain farms early the next morning for a short but informative talk on cloning followed by a judging competition in which everyone had to participate. A very interesting morning resulted in the obviously talented UK delegation taking first prize in 4 of the 5 classes 21 well done to our capable judges. The afternoon saw us partake of a tailgate lunch (produced from the tailgate of a car, just in case you were wondering) before taking our seats amongst the other 108,000 people for the football match between the Tenessee Volunteers and Notre Dame. Unfortunately our team, the volunteers, lost and my $20 baseball cap was rendered worthless, but the razzmatazz of the cheerleaders and the half time display by the marching bands almost made up for our inability to see the ball, let alone understand the rules.
The next four days saw us travel through Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and back into Kentucky for the conference at Louisville. We visited Kentucky Horse Park, The National Aircraft Museum at Dayton, and the Speedway track and museum at Indianapolis. We also saw plenty of Beef Shorthorns at Byland farms, Cates Farms and Waukaru Farms. All the farms had different objectives and different markets for their cattle, which provided a variety of types for us to see. Byland farms concentrated very much on performance recording their animals, while Cates Farms had a thriving business producing show animals and their annual sale the previous year had 47 averaged $11,000. It was here that we saw several progeny of Shadybrook Centurion, the bull we had seen sold in Canada at the Shadybrook sale 2 years ago for $100.000CAN. Barry Jordan’s Waukaru Farms specialised in rearing bulls for the commercial market and sold 50 to 60 bulls annually into commercial herds. All these farms had identified their market and were producing what their customers required. We were also very well entertained along the way by the Ohio and the Indianapolis Cattlemen’s Associations as well as by the host farmers themselves. Our arrival at the Hilton Gardens Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky where we were to stay for the next 6 days was a welcome relief from the coach travel. We met up with other delegates arriving for the Conference and the second part of the tour.
The 11th World Shorthorn Conference was held in the impressive Conference Hall in the Expo Centre next door to the hotel. The Country reports were interspersed with papers by Nick Hammett on ASA Commercial Marketing and Genetic Evaluation, Peter Vincent on the Durham Research and Development Project, Graeme Mitchell on the future Direction for Australian Shorthorns, Gary Weber on BSE implications for the US and beyond, Jim Gibb on DNA Technologies for parentage/diagnostic testing, John Beever on DNA marker potential for Tibial Hemimelia, and Ron Boltze on opportunities for shorthorns in the US. I thought the conference was a well organised and interesting two days, and the most moving report of the Conference, given by Don Rigby of Zimbabwe describing how his farms had been taken and his cattle stolen or killed left the entire Conference Hall with lumps in their throats and tears in their eyes. How Don manages to retain his sense of humour amongst such atrocities is quite remarkable.
The Thursday Evening trip to the casino, hosted by the US Shorthorn Breeders saw President Stuart Durno’s organisational skills brought to the fore. He competently organised a late bus to leave at 12 midnight so that people who wished to stay and play the tables could do so, and then promptly returned on the early bus. A Scotsman and his money are not that easily parted.
Friday evening provided one of the spectacles of the tour with a visit to the rodeo. Cowboys riding bucking broncos, roping and tying steers and riding mad bulls was something not seen in the UK. In fact I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite so mad. I still can’t believe how those cowboys got up, dusted themselves down, and walked away as if nothing had happened, and how a one armed cowboy with a horse and a whip managed to herd two buffalos on to the top of a gooseneck trailer will for ever remain a mystery. If you ever get the chance to see a real rodeo, it is a ‘must do.
We had a welcome lie in on Saturday morning before travelling the short distance to the Holt-Ragsdale – Milestone Event. This was our first experience on this tour of the auction sales USA style, and it is certainly fast and furious. The American Shorthorn Society’s Annual Banquet took place in the Expo Centre that evening, attended by over 400 members and friends. The association’s annual prize giving was followed by a charity auction with the proceeds going to the American 4H juniors. My hand painted silk tie, which Joy had persuaded me to part with, sold for an incredible $500, and the highlight of the auction, a place for a bull in the Durham Project sold for $6500. Sunday saw the start of the Shorthorn judging with the junior classes, and then the main Shorthorn classes were judged throughout the day on Monday in the impressive setting of the Freedom Hall. Whether we agreed with the judge or not, we could not fault the care and attention which went into preparing the animals for the show, and what a tremendous spectacle it provided. They certainly know how to put on a show.
Leaving Louisville the tour travelled through Illinois, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. We visited Show Me Farms where Don Mayse produces “Born Tender Beef” for his customers, and guarantees the tenderness every time by shear testing every carcass for tenderness. We were also entertained with stories and poems by cowboy Don Collop who had cooked our 446 breakfast over the open fire in true cowboy style. Visits to the Missouri University Research Department and the Meat and Animal Research Centre at Clay Centre gave us a fascinating insight into the amount of money the US Government is prepared to put into research for the agricultural Industry. Clay Centre keeps 15,000 cows on 30,000 acres with all the calves kept in a huge feedlot. It was a far cry from the UK. Our evening meal was hosted by the Kansas Shorthorn breeders at the Senior Citizen’s Centre, so to ensure we didn’t leave any of our party, we counted them in and we counted them out.
Kansas is renowned for its wheat and its aviation industry. It has 50 million acres of farmland, 39,000 cattle farms and produces 20% of the entire US wheat crop. I could go on but then in Kansas everything is bigger. We passed through Kansas into Oklahoma, famous for its oil, grazing land and tornadoes, stopping at Wichita on the way. We were now deep into cowboy country, and a sculpture and plaque beside the road, identified the route of the Chisholm trail. The trail had been used in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War by the retreating Federal garrisons, and was then subsequently used to herd cattle across the prairies to be collected in yards at Abilene for onward shipment by rail.
We visited Lauer farms, a commercial enterprise selling surplus heifers and bulls to other shorthorn breeders, as well as fattening all their bull calves, and then in Sherman Texas, we saw our only milking shorthorn herd of the tour. Diane Cook’s Hilltop herd is one of the top milking shorthorn herds in the Country and we saw some very milky shorthorns, which were obviously doing the job. Her bull Hilltop Academy is the premier sire in the US at the moment, with more calves registered by him than by any other bull. Our last farm visit was to the WHR Ranch owned by Bill and Becky Razor. We had a chance to see Shadybrook Centurion himself as well as some more progeny, and we marvelled at the wonderful buildings and facilities, which Bill had put together on this farm. It was a fitting end to a tremendous tour. Our last night was generously hosted by Bill and Becky Razor as we ate Mexican Food and drank Margaritas before heading back to the hotel.
We had a wonderful tour and our thanks go to all the people who so generously gave of their time and resources to make this such a memorable trip. In particular our thanks to Gordon and Shirley Brockmueller and to Joy and Lee Kerby for all the hours of planning. On a personal note, it was wonderful to meet so many new friends as well as old friends from the last Conference. Roll on Argentina in 2007.