The History of the "Great Western Beef Expo"
In a day and age where the cattle business is seeing a vast number of changes and making a new dedication to the quality of our product, one program saw the hand writing on the wall years ago. Entering their third decade of steer testing, the Great Western Beef Expo, Sterling, Colorado has grown to be one of the most credible and highly regarded sire progeny test in the U.S.
Established in 1969, this program was initially introduced to work with the smaller cow/calf producers. At that time, only the large commercial feedlots were offering custom feeding programs, however, the smaller producers usually did not have the numbers necessary to fill these large commercial feedlot pens. Therefore, a group of 11 gentlemen committed themselves to the first board of directors to help the smaller cow/calf producer.
In the beginning, the feeding took place at a couple of small, private feedlots in the Sterling area and even was conducted at the Logan County Fairgrounds. However, these situations did not prove to be successful so, in 1981-82, the current facilities were constructed and named the Northeast Colorado Beef Improvement Center. Initially, the program accepted pens of cattle from producers ranging in size from 10 to 25 head.
As the Expo continued to grow, some of the individuals began looking into the future of the cattle business. As they made predictions as to where they thought the industry was headed, these individuals had the initiative to start making changes to meet their visions of the future. They began to place more specific requirements on the producers involved and reduced the size of the pens to five head. As they started collecting information and testing for such things as feed efficiency, they found that pens of five animals were the best size to work with.
More and more progressive cattlemen began taking leadership roles in the program, as well as participating in it. It was their vision that continued to change the program's objectives. Individuals like Max Fulscher of Amherst, Colorado, helped advance the program into the next stage. Fulscher and others could see the road the industry was headed down. Their visions of "tomorrow's industry" lead them to implement an even more stringent testing process. They incorporated the collection of carcass data in order to get a better evaluation of the quality of our beef product.
Two areas that can be evaluated in determining the type of carcass being produced is the average yield grade of the cattle and the price per pound paid for the carcass. The yield grade, along with the quality grade or marbling score, are the two components that determine the overall value of a carcass and thus the price that carcass receives.
In an attempt to recognize those pens that are meeting the highest quality as a whole, the Max Fulscher Award was established. This award is presented in honor of Mr. Fulscher, representing all the work and dedication he contributed to the success of today's Great Western Beef Expo. The Max Fulscher Award is presented to those pens in which every animal produces a carcass with a quality grade of Choice or Prime coupled with a yield grade of 1 or 2.
All of these events have lead us to today, where the Great Western Beef Expo has earned the title "Super Bowl of all Sire Progeny Test" from cattlemen all across the country. With the extreme competitiveness of today's meat protein market, our industry has realized the importance of producing a consistent, high quality product.....something that our industry must continue to strive for if we hope to be a major part of the consumer's diet in years to come.
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