By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Ashlyn O’Brien and Owen Brinker are borderline introverts until you put them in a livestock arena and ask them to judge livestock. Their special powers kick in, and they come alive with their knowledge about livestock, their ability to evaluate the animals and their artistry to explain their reasonings.
The 2021 Eastwood High School graduates have taken their livestock judging skills from their 4-H and FFA years as members of the Wood County team to the ultra-competitive junior college level and with great success.
“What they’ve done is pretty incredible,” said their former coach, Ivan Belleville, who is co-coach with Kirsten Kemner of the Wood County Livestock Judging Team.
O’Brien went from the Wood County team to the livestock judging team at Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kansas, where she had an exceptional year judging livestock during her sophomore year. She was named an All American Junior College Livestock Judge, a title earned by only 15 individuals each year for excellence in livestock judging and academics. The agribusiness major placed fifth place overall as an individual in the All American junior college division.
She also placed first overall (fourth in reasons, first in cattle, and fifth in sheep and goats) at the Cattleman’s Congress in Oklahoma City, sixth overall at Louisville’s North American International Livestock Expo, fifth at the Houston show, and 12th overall and ninth in hogs at the Denver National Western Show.
Brinker chose to attend Connors State College in Warner, Oklahoma, after high school and major in animal science. His top personal highlights since joining the junior college team include winning first place individual in the Aksarben Stock Show in Harbine, Nebraska, and second overall—one point out of first place–at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, where he also was second in sheep and goats, third in horses, fourth in cattle, seventh in swine and ninth in reasons.
“The contests they excelled in are the major ones out west, and a lot of people out west look down on the livestock judging talent that comes from the eastern states,” Belleville said. “So they are probably raising a few eyebrows with Ashlyn’s and Owen’s wins.”
At eight years old, Brinker started showing sheep and cattle, which expanded to include goats and hogs throughout his Livestock Unlimited 4-H career. Eventually, he had the idea to raise club lambs to sell, which has grown into a family business including his two younger twin brothers, “to get back to our roots since my father and grandfather raised sheep when they were younger,” Brinker said.
Because Brinker was all about livestock as an eight-year-old, he wanted to get involved as quickly and as much as possible. He had heard about the county livestock judging team, but his father suggested he wait until he was nine years old. He and O’Brien, who happened to be Eastwood elementary classmates, joined the livestock judging team the same year, under then-coach Dan Frobose.
O’Brien joined 4-H at the age of nine and started by showing pigs and cattle. “Throughout my 4-H years, I grew to love showing sheep, despite some people’s opinions that sheep are dumb,” O’Brien said. She also got the judging bug when she was nine and joined the county livestock judging team.
Both O’Brien and Brinker were eager to learn and thrived in the positive and supportive environment of the livestock judging team.
“We just worked our way up through the ranks and ended up on the same team,” Brinker said. And that team, which also included Hannen and Hayden Belleville, ended up being the junior team and senior champion teams.
“Even though that group of kids got the short end of the stick because of Covid, we knew they were a special group,” Belleville said. “We knew if we kept Owen and Ashlyn together they would have a bright future. When they won the state contest, they were four of the top five in the contest and they won by 70-some points,” which may be one of the biggest margins of victory at that level.
Belleville said Brinker was the hardest worker on the team. “He’s the one that put in the extra time from a very early age. He was very gifted in his oral reasons. He studied some of the more successful kids on the national level and patterned his reasons style and tendencies after them.”
“Ashley worked hard too, but I would call her a gamer. Her practice abilities didn’t necessarily reflect what she could do in the contest, but she would really shine when the lights got a little brighter,” Belleville said.
O’Brien and Brinker appreciated the family community of the country livestock judging team, from the coaches to the older members. Not only did those older team members help O’Brien and Brinker improve their judging skills, but they also opened their eyes to the opportunities beyond Wood County and Ohio.
Many of the livestock judging team members went to Butler Community College, O’Brien said, “So when it came time for me to think about college, I knew Butler had a good program; it made it easier for me to visit and once I did, I loved it,” O’Brien said.
Brinker was similarly impacted. “There were a bunch of mentors when I was younger who were all planning to go out West after high school to judge livestock in junior and senior college. That was really my goal growing up, to go out west to college and judge,” he said.
They both credit their involvement in livestock judging for developing their critical thinking, public speaking and reasoning skills.
“Some people think we’re just goofy for going through these contests, but out of it I’ve gained confidence, being able to speak my opinions and back them up. And at the end of the day, your commitment to your team and just being a good teammate and pulling your own weight is really important,” O’Brien said. After Butler Community College, she plans to attend Oklahoma State University in Stillwater to earn her degree in agribusiness and then possibly pursue a career in ag sales.
For Brinker, he viewed “livestock judging like a responsibility. I wanted to grow up to be a better person, but once you embrace it and treat it as a competition, almost like a sport, it helps with public speaking and critical thinking and decision making—important job skills,” Brinker said.
After he graduates from Connors State this spring, he will be home for the summer helping his brothers with their livestock. He plans to attend a senior college in the fall, either Texas Tech University or Kansas State University, with the ultimate goal of going on for a master’s degree and possibly a Ph.D. in ruminant nutrition. He wants to be a ruminant nutritionist for cattle yards or possibly for show animals “to give back to and develop feed rations for the show industry. I plan on it being my whole livelihood using livestock judging as a part of my everyday life and career as well,” he said.
O’Brien said she is so thankful for the skills she has learned through livestock judging. “I know to some it is just livestock judging, but it changes your life a little bit, at least it has for me.”
