Elgin, Okla. – Eddie Ham is disgusted with the way ego and greed – and cheating – have poisoned the wholesome heartland pastime of raising animals for county fairs or stock shows.
“It used to be all about family and morals, that’s what it was about. Now, it’s all about money,” said Ham, of Elgin, Okla., who showed animals in Oklahoma as a child in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Back then, exhibitors would go down to the cafe after a show, eat a hamburger with friends, and celebrate, no matter who won.
“We enjoyed it. It was fun,” said Ham, whose family has been in the livestock business for as long as he can remember. “The fact was, we might win $8 or $10 at a show, and we thought that was a lot of money. We thought that was the greatest thing in the world. Today, they think $21,000 is not enough.”
Last month, 17 competitors – 13 from Oklahoma – were disqualified from the National Western Stock Show, Rodeo & Horse Show’s junior lamb January competition in Denver after being accused of “needling” – a practice that makes animals appear more muscular via injections of an unknown substance.
The large number of people involved, including a four-time grand champion owner, has renewed scrutiny on the lengths to which people will go for the money and prestige bestowed upon winners of livestock competitions.
For many Oklahomans, raising animals in 4-H and Future Farmers of America programs is the next best thing to, and in some cases better than, University of Oklahoma football.
“When you get into it, it’s like church, religion,” Ham said. “You live it like you live as a Christian person. Everything the preacher says, you’ve got to do. Everything the ag teacher says you’ve got to do, you do.”
Cheating at livestock shows isn’t unique to Oklahomans – dozens of competitors have been disqualified in the past 20 years from shows in Ohio, Texas and Colorado, according to published reports.
But a veteran of the livestock-show circuit said he wasn’t surprised by the large number of contestants from the Sooner state caught up in the National Western controversy.
“I’ll tell you, Oklahoma is a hotbed for cheating,” said Fred Daily, director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, which runs that state’s fair.
“I don’t know why it is. We’ve traced some of our investigations back to people from Oklahoma. Some of the exhibitors came from there; some of the animals were purchased out there in Oklahoma.”
Other cheating scandals involving Oklahomans:
In 1998, a Cordell, Okla., veterinarian pleaded guilty to smuggling Clenbuterol, a banned drug that can enhance an animal’s appearance. He sold the drug to at least six people, including contestants later caught using the drug on livestock at the Tulsa State Fair.
Four years earlier, an Oklahoma ag teacher lost his job after a hog his daughter showed tested positive for Clenbuterol at the Tulsa fair.
Some blame huge prize money – as much as $560,000 for a grand champion steer at a Houston show – and the prestige of winning a major show, for fostering win-at-all-costs attitudes.
“It’s intergenerational bragging rights,” Daily said. “For years, when you have Christmas dinners and Thanksgiving, you’re going to talk about the fact that you had the grand champion lamb at the Denver stock show.”
Some families go so far as to hire “show jockeys,” groomers who prepare the animals for show, taking the animal completely out of the youngster’s care.
Show enthusiasts say the practice is counter to everything that agricultural programs like 4-H and the FFA try to teach youth: responsibility, hard work, animal husbandry.
Others will pay large sums to animal breeders who all but guarantee victory at stock shows.
“I know of a steer that sold for $30,000,” said Barbara Wood, retired agriculture director for the Tulsa State Fair. At best, she said, the animal might produce 600 pounds of meat that sells for $3 per pound.
“Maybe I missed the boat somewhere, but the only winner on that is the guy that’s selling him,” Wood said. “It’s a line of product. If you’ve got a grand champion at the show, you can almost sell every steer you can get your hands on.”
In the past decade, some livestock shows, including the prestigious Ohio State Fair, have put limits on the prices animals can bring at youth livestock shows.
“A darn good showman”
Kashen Urban, whose lamb won grand champion at the National Western this year and each of the previous three years, has had $28,000 withheld as a result of his disqualification.
Urban declined interview requests and avoided a reporter who tried to speak with him on the campus of Oklahoma State University.
In his hometown of Roosevelt, Okla., residents said they were shocked by the allegations of cheating.
For years, Gayla Miller, 47, of Roosevelt said she watched Urban work, day after day, before school and after school, to get ready to show his lamb in the nation’s biggest stock shows.
“You’d see him out there for a couple hours in the morning and three or four hours after school. He worked weekends, everything,” Miller said.
In this town of 200, no one worked harder at showing livestock than Urban.
“He’s a darn good showman,” Miller said. “He knows how to groom the lambs. He can make the muscles pop when the judges want it. It just comes naturally to him.”
All of the 17 exhibitors whose lambs were disqualified from the National Western, including Urban, have written letters to the stock show questioning their disqualifications.
National Western officials have said the disqualified animals had been injected with an unknown substance that caused inflammation and swelling of tissue, making the animals appear more muscular. Needle marks were found along the animals’ spines and on the hind legs; not the necks, where experts said routine injections would be given.
Exhibitors hire attorney
Within the next six weeks, the stock show is expected to decide what sanctions – if any – will be taken against the competitors and whether they will be banned from future shows or asked to repay the cost of the investigation.
The stock show has already turned the matter over to the Denver district attorney for possible filing of criminal charges.
Stephen Jones, an Oklahoma attorney who is representing five contestants, including Urban, said he has asked for the records, video recordings and explanation of security surveillance procedures but that National Western officials will not provide them because the district attorney has asked them not to.
Jones, who represented Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, predicts no criminal charges will be filed.
“There is no evidence of (tampering); there’s no adequate chain of custody; there’s no evidence that our clients committed any crime; and they’re simply using the district attorney’s office to shield themselves, and that won’t work.”
For people like Eddie Ham, whose family buys lambs to show for kids who cannot afford them, the investigation by the National Western is welcomed.
“I know some really good teachers who would be rolling over in their casket if they knew this was even going on,” Ham said.
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
