Studying every class, watching every move and creating a carefully crafted reason is how the Mizzou Livestock Judging Team is making its mark.
“I’m very excited to kind of create some tradition surrounding the judging teams again,” says Tawnie DeJong, an animal science instructor and livestock judging coach at the University of Missouri.
The University of Missouri is tapping into a tradition that was lost for nearly a decade.
“I hate to see a state like Missouri that’s so rooted in agriculture and is so diversified in agriculture, not have a competitive livestock judging team and have those avenues for students to learn those skills,” DeJong says.
For students such as Aaron Mott, the revival of a tradition is a dream come true.
“As soon as I found out that Tawnie was coming to coach, I got pretty excited about it,” says Mott, a senior at the University of Missouri, hailing from Clark, Mo.
As a senior, Mott made joining the Livestock Judging Team a priority this year.
“It’s something I caught on to back when I was still in high school,” he says. “We got to compete nationally, and so that’s something close to my heart.”
Bringing the livestock judging team back to life takes time and dedication.
“We practice three or four times a week,” DeJong says. “Then we also have my livestock judging class as well, so we are training up the next teams. We practice somewhere around 30 hours a week in terms of contests and practices.”
“From Tawnie, I’ve already learned a lot about structure and a lot about functionality, practicality, all those types of things,” Mott says. “Now when I go home, I look at my own cattle, and I see the holes in them. Sometimes that’s for the better, sometimes for worse, but all in all, I think it makes people a better stockman.”
It’s those valuable livestock lessons DeJong pushes with a passion.
“I get teased by my family all the time, because livestock judging is my favorite sport,” she says. “It always has been.”
DeJong wasted no time, immediately getting her boots muddy and making a splash at Mizzou, after joining the team in July.
“It’s very exciting to be able to get out and have the leeway to be able to make Mizzou competitive in in livestock judging again in the country,” she says.
For Mott, it wasn’t just a chance to finally judge livestock at a collegiate level—it was the opportunity to carry on a tradition.
“My grandpa was a livestock judge here at Mizzou 60 years ago,” he says. “To know I’ll be standing where he was 60 years ago, doing the same thing, keeping those family traditions just moving forward, that’s something that definitely is super special for me.”
