County Line Beef Secures 1st Place at Oklahoma’s Best Beef Competition in Stockyards

The Stockyard Stampede took place on Saturday in Historic Stockyard City, where Longhorns led the parade, Horses gave rides, and folks got to sample some of the best beef in Oklahoma at the Best Beef Competition. There were plenty of fun things to do with your family, including a petting zoo, Made In Oklahoma Vendors for shopping, horse-drawn carriage rides, ice cream, snow cones, and of course downtown shopping in Cowtown! The one thing you couldn’t ignore was the delightful smell of steak cooking underneath Oklahoma’s Best Beef Competition Tent.

Listen to KC visit with Beef Judge, Jody Harris

Thousands of people came through the beef tent to smell, taste, and see what this event was all about. Farm Director KC Sheperd was on Hand to visit with Judge Jody Harris from Stillwater, Oklahoma, who is a professional BBQ and steak cooker who said she was looking for Taste and Texture, “We were looking at taste, and we were looking at texture. Taste, you know I believe these cooks here today wanted to showcase the beef that they’re providing us.” Harris said she also enjoyed getting to hear the personal stories of the ranches being showcased, “As they brought in the steak, they had three minutes to tell us all about their ranch, all about their herd, all about the companies they have, and even about how they prepared the steaks, a very special day.”

Harris said all of the steaks were great, so great In fact, the difference between third and first is, “We’re talking 4/10ths of a point, so it’s very close.”

Listen to Mariah Reimer talk about this year’s Big Event.

Winners were announced in two categories after the crowd had the opportunity to vote on People’s choice. The Nationally Sanctioned Judges chose County Line Beef as #1, followed by Wheeler Farms, and 3rd place went to Piguet’s Prime Time. After the winners were announced, KC sat down with Mariah Reimer, Foundation Executive Director at the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association, to talk about the success of the event, “I just want to thank all of our competitors. They just did outstanding. The Judges always have a hard time.” For the National Judging, Reimer said they bring in judges whose main job is to judge beef, “All they do is travel across the country and taste steak, they taste beef, and they vote and then they also compete at the national level, so they get recertified every year, so they are experts in their field.”

Last years event was held in the Stockyard’s sale area, but this year, Reimer moved the event to Mainstreet so folks could take part in the other festivities going on for the Stockyard Stampede, “I know we’ve got a great event; I know it’ll show, but we moved it right on Main Street. The (Longhorn) cattle come right through here, right by our event, which makes for a great photo op. So you couldn’t ask for a better location right here in Stockyard City right on Main Street.”

With the move, Reimer said they saw twice as many people, “We had over 1200 people come through here. Last year, we had a little around 600 over by the stockyards. This year, we moved right on Main Street and had over 1200 people come through. They learned about our product, they learned about what we do, and it was a great day.”

Looking forward to next year, Reimer said she’s still looking upward to make the event bigger and better, “We’re gonna shoot for that over 1000 attendees, it’s across the entire state. So last year, we won an award for premiere special event under 1000. It was statewide, and we got great recognition for it, and this year, we’re aiming for over 1000. Get another award under our belts, get more exposure and more fan-favorite awards, and just keep going for the cattle industry. That’s what we do every day.”

1st Place: County Line Beef