Kenneth Younglund was just looking Friday, but when he was an active rancher and auctioneer, he made the first breeders show 23 years ago and continued to show his bulls there for about 15 years.
Ben and Jana Ward met at the Beef Breeders Show seven years ago.
MILES CITY—Standing in the middle of Main Street in downtown Miles City on Friday, Chad Moke was feeling pretty good.
For one thing, the weather was about perfect for the 23rd Annual Cowtown Beef Breeders Show, sunny and warm, with temperatures creeping into the mid-40s by noon. And the cattle market was looking strong after a record-breaking 2014.
“I’d say people spend a lifetime waiting for a market this good,” said Moke, who was in Miles City showing bulls for Redland Red Angus. That’s the outfit in Hysham with the big sign on the show barn west of town: “Better Bred Red.”
John Laney
John Laney, director of the Miles City Area Chamber of Commerce, described the annual one-day event as “a social occasion for people who aren’t selling, and a combination of social and business for people who are.”
Producers come from around Montana, Wyoming and both Dakotas, usually to show what they’ve got in advance of their own bull sales. Deals are sometimes made at the show, but it is generally just a chance to do some looking.
This is nothing like the Miles City Bucking Horse Sale, held in May, a three-day street party and rodeo that attracts people from all over the world.
For this year’s bucking horse sale, Laney said, “We’ve already sold tickets for Saturday to people from Switzerland.”
“This,” Laney said, referring to the Cowtown Beef Breeders Show, “is the real deal. The people you see here—this is their life. You’ll see generations of people here.”
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
For this year’s show, there were 35 pens full of bulls displayed on three blocks of Main Street.
The show is sponsored by the chamber’s Ag Council and is meant to give bull producers a leg up on the sale season and to bring some business to the downtown. This year, there were 35 pens full of bulls stretched out along three blocks of Main Street.
It takes lots of volunteers to set up the one-day show, Laney said, including local FFA youths who assemble the pens, unload bulls, “do all the running all day long” and break everything down at the end of the show.
Most of the bulls being shown are yearlings, meaning they were born last year and are ready to start breeding now. Moke said ranchers generally need one bull for every 25 cows, and a good bull will do his business for about five years.
Trent Coleman, from Charlo, about 50 miles north of Missoula in the Mission Valley, was showing five Limousin bulls. He said the Limousin line dates back 20,000 years in the region of what is now France, and they began to be imported into the United States in the 1960s and ’70s.
He said he’s been coming to the Beef Breeders Show for 13 or 14 years, and he likes how it gives him the opportunity to catch up with ranchers and customers from Miles City, Broadus and even the northeastern corner of Montana. He said ranchers like to use the Limousin bulls to crossbreed their cattle. Benefits include “really good carcass traits.”
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
Chad and Jenny Moke, with Redland Red Angus, in Hysham.
Bull breeders Frank and Charlene Mehling, whose Medicine Rocks Ranch is near Baker, winter their bulls at Midland Bull Test in Columbus. That operation is one of the best in the country, Frank said, with a great feeding program, a nice climate and cheaper feed than he can get on his ranch.
Some years he and Charlene will drive all the way to Columbus before and after the show, but this year a former hand who ranches closer to Columbus was able to bring five of their black Angus bulls down to Miles City for them. They were also happy about the beautiful weather.
“We missed about five years because it was so darned cold here,” Charlene said. One year they were all set to go when it started raining, and before long the roads were solid ice. They stayed home.
The Mehlings will have their bull sale on April 20 in Bowman, N.D., and the Miles City show is the only place they show their bulls before the sale. Frank said he thinks the show does them some good, but he admits he doesn’t know for sure.
“You never know where you’re gonna get the most bang for your buck in this advertising world,” he said.
Black Angus with ear tag.
Ben Ward, who was admiring a pen full of Hereford bulls, said the Cowtown Beef Breeders Show holds a special place in his memory.
“I met my wife at this seven years ago,” he said.
He was working for Northwest Farm Credit Services and already knew other members of his wife’s family. When he joined them at the Bison Bar after a very cold day on the street, he was introduced to Jana.
They now live in Payette, Idaho, where Ben is a farm and ranch appraiser. They and their two children came back to Miles City for a funeral last weekend and his wife decided to stay for another week so they could take in the bull show for the first time since they met. Ben was traveling for work most of the week but got back to Miles City in time for the show.
“I grew up farm and ranch, so it’s always close to my heart,” he said, and the bull show “is a good place to run into people you haven’t seen in a long time.”
Ben said he has a hobby farm in Idaho “with a few cows,” so he wasn’t in the market for a bull, but it was fun just to be looking. He figures that’s the way it is for a lot of people in town.
