Tidd shows champion steer

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This year’s Champion Market Beef exhibitor at the Delaware County Junior Fair attributes his success to hard work.

“Here on the farm we always go by a saying, and it’s hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” said Kase Tidd. “I worked all summer with him and walked him and washed him like every day.”

Tidd, who hails from LaRue in Marion County and attends sixth grade in the Elgin Local School District, has shown animals at the fair for the past three years. He had champion hogs his first two years, and reserve champion feeder steer last year.

Cattle take more work than hogs, Tidd said.

“Steers you have to work with them a lot more and wash them and walk them every single day, and it takes a very long time to wash them,” he said. “You have to blow them out every day, create long hair, groom them and everything. Compared to pigs, you just have to walk them — easy things that take a little while, but not as long as steers.”

The fair’s resource sheets state market steers or heifers should have a straight top line on its back, a deep muscular bulging quarter on its back leg, deep-bodied and clean front end (the neck area), and wide and thick across the top of the back.

“Market beef, you’re producing a market animal for slaughtering,” Tidd said. Judges are looking at the animal’s “structure, the muscle and the mass, and how much meat is on them.”

His steer, born last year on the family farm, weighed 1,390 pounds. “Yeah, sometimes they are hard to handle, but they’re like big puppy dogs. I love cattle and want to continue raising them and doing a lot with them.”

The coronavirus pandemic had an impact on showing at this year’s Delaware County Junior Fair, Tidd said.

“It was a lot different because we didn’t have all the time. It was pushed back, it was all in one day. Wearing a mask and everything was different. But you can’t give up. A lot of people gave up and didn’t want to show just because of the COVID-19, but you can’t give up,” Tidd said. “I also want to thank the fair for everything they’ve done and making the fair happen so all of us kids could show.”

Pictured alongside his champion steer, Kase Tidd holds his Champion Market Beef banner.
https://www.delgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2020/10/web1_IMG_55021.jpgPictured alongside his champion steer, Kase Tidd holds his Champion Market Beef banner. Courtesy photo

By Gary Budzak

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Gary Budzak may be reached at 740-413-0906 or on Twitter @GaryBudzak.

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