Raising winners: Pride and family tradition illuminate the fair's parade of champions

Amid applause and the flash of cameras, 8-year-old Chase Asmus of New Hamburg, Mo., showed off his winning calf, Buster, in the SEMO District Fair's parade of champions Saturday. What made Buster's blue ribbon remarkable is that the calf was able to walk at all.

Buster, a 4-month-old grand champion bucket calf, is a twin who was born with his hooves curled inward. A bucket calf is an orphan or a newborn calf purchased when it is one to 10 days old.

Owner Jewell Moore of New Hamburg, Mo., used epoxy glue to affix custom-cut plywood to Buster's hooves to straighten them. In two and a half weeks, the calf's growing weight combined with daily walking helped exert pressure to correct the deformity.

But then Buster's mother stopped feeding him. Moore and his grandsons took over and bottle-fed Buster powdered milk. Moore said, "I didn't want to see him die."

Not only did the calf live, but it won a grand champion ribbon from the judge.

The spirited calf paraded past the crowd properly but when it was time to exit, Buster, with a mind of his own, nearly dragged Chase back to the 4-H tent.

The fair's parade of champions displays the judges' prize-winners, and the few minutes each farm animal was allotted to trot by the audience represented many hours of care and maintenance -- and for some owners, determination -- in seeing an animal make it.

Family affair

Moore said it was the first time showing at the fair for Chase, their grandson, who is a member of the New Hamburg Eager Beavers 4-H Club.

Moore's wife, Pat, the 4-H Club's leader, said, "Chase was over at the house two or three days a week all summer long taking care of him."

Chase's brother, 16-year-old Chris, was happy for his brother winning a grand champion ribbon with Buster. "I didn't think [the calf] would make it," he said. Chris helps his grandmother at the farm as much as he can and has been involved in 4-H since he was his brother's age.

Raising cattle is a family business that everyone gets involved in.

At the Pohlman Farm in Oak Ridge, 18-year-old Ryan contributes daily to the care of the animals on the farm. In exchange, Ryan's reserve champion bull will add $980 to his bank account to be used for schooling costs.

Farming, a family tradition, was rooted in him at an early age. Pohlman started showing at the fair when he was eight years old and according to him, chores on the farm began when he was old enough to handle a shovel. The Oak Ridge High School senior is the only boy in the family and learned responsibility at an early age. He may make a career in agricultural business but is kicking around other ideas. "I'm a hands-on person. I like outdoor work. When I get old [and can't perform some of the duties] that's what retirement's for," he said.

All week he's been up at 5 a.m. and at the fair by 5:30 to wash, feed, water and tie out the steer and bull he's responsible for. His school doesn't have an FFA chapter and he's been missing school all week to be at fair. "The principal lets us make up the work, and we have to write a one-page report on what we've done at the fair that day," Pohlman said.

cpagano@semissourian.com

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