An advocate for the livestock industry who wears many hats including teacher, coach, mentor, advisor, husband and father, Dan Shike, joins The PORK Podcast for the final episode of 2024. Shike grew up on a diversified farm in Illinois and now serves as a professor and interim department head in animal sciences at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He has a passion for livestock, livestock judging and helping the next generation of young people.
When it comes to coaching young people and helping his own kids with their livestock, Shike says, “I will always push hard because if we’re not trying to do this at a high level, then why are we doing it? I’m going to try and help you be competitive. We’re not always going to win, and in some cases, it might be a long time before we’re good enough to truly be in a position to win. But if we’re not trying, then we’re probably wasting each other’s time.”
Shike also reminds the youth and students he works with that when they don’t have the results they wanted, that’s not what defines them.
“Their value is not in what they’re placing at that contest or how many times they have won,” Shike says. “There are bigger things in life than that. Learning how to work hard, be committed and dedicated to something, and be humble when you do win, and own it when you don’t, are important life skills.”
These traits Shike shares with young people come from the experiences he had being mentored by others.
“I think establishing that mentoring relationship is one of the most impactful things that we can do,” Shike says. “It was impactful in my life to have my mentors, the people who decided to invest in me — from my county coaches and high school ag teachers to my college coaches and instructors at Black Hawk and Kansas State to my research advisors and faculty advisors at the University of Illinois.”
Speaking of mentors, Shike says Doug Parrett, former University of Illinois beef professor, influenced him deeply, personally and professionally.
“Not only was Dr. Parrett my coaching and judging mentor, but his career in extension, in teaching and in working with young people and producers, made a big impression on my life,” Shike says. “I got to see him work with those audiences and see how he approached them. He was one of the most relatable people that anyone knew.”
Shike has made an impression of his own on others. Craig Beckmier, a close friend and instructor/livestock judging team coach at Lincoln Land Community College, says Dan shares many of the same characteristics of his mentor.
“His ability to relate to all aspects of the livestock industry is second to no one,” Beckmier says. “He always has had the gift of being one of the smartest people in the room and one of the most relatable. That has provided him with a unique skill set to share his knowledge and wisdom with all ages and backgrounds.”
Former graduate student Parker Henley, who is now a professor and livestock judging coach at Oklahoma State University, had this to say about his former graduate school advisor and mentor.
“Dan excels at connecting the dots between basic research and practical applications,” Henley says. “He’s one of those rare academics who can take a producer’s problem and dive deep into the science to find solutions. His work in nutritional efficiency, specifically quantifying beef cow intake, has had a significant impact on genetic evaluations and the beef industry.”
Although Shike is humbled by those words, being able to provide research that directly applies to producers’ needs is his goal as an animal scientist.
“My research has always been focused on practical application,” he says. “We have people who are working at the very basic end of the spectrum — understanding fundamental mechanisms and what’s going on at the cellular level, and that is absolutely essential to moving science forward. But we also have people at the other end of the spectrum who are working on developing on-farm solutions where the results of a particular experiment could be adopted by a producer tomorrow and have an impact on their bottom line or on their production output. That’s where I sit in the spectrum of research.”
Dan and Jennifer spend some time on the podcast sharing about their experiences livestock judging at Black Hawk College-East Campus and Kansas State University, making the decision to attend graduate school at the University of Illinois and establish a career, and of course, their family. The couple is raising their three children, Olivia, Hunter and Harper, to also have a passion for livestock and the industry.
Watch the full episode here or listen on your favorite podcast channels.
