In line with their mission to promote beef, the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association has manned a beef tent at the Tulsa State Fair for decades where fairgoers can enjoy a mouth-watering ribeye beef sandwich.. Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays caught up with Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association’s Executive Vice President Michael Kelsey to talk about what has now been upgraded to a Beef Building.
“We have done this for thirty-plus years,” Kelsey said. “When Jarold Callahan was the executive vice president, he started it in the early nineties, and we have continued it. That ribeye sandwich is a staple of the Tulsa State Fair.”
At the 2024 event, OCA members served 8,100 steak sandwiches, equating to about 2,200 pounds of ribeye. “That is probably the lowest amount we have done in a while,” Kelsey said. “Our peak was 23,000 sandwiches.”
The reason for the reduction is simply a change in the culture of the Tulsa State Fair. “It is a food carnival, now, not so much a ride carnival, anymore,” Kelsey explained. “Advertisements are now centered around fair food. Then if you consider the cost to park, the cost to get in the gate, a family of four is going to spend $70 to $80 just to get in. In a tight-budget year, they’re going to squeeze their belts a little tighter, so it made sense to us that numbers were down. We were about a thousand less than we did last year.”
While the Beef Building is a revenue source for the association, Kelsey said that its projected image is more important. With 250 concession stands on the grounds, OCA was happy to sell 8,100 steak sandwiches after they had planned for 7,500.
“The folks that put the Tulsa State Fair on have a Most Savory Dish competition each year, and this year they wouldn’t let us compete because we’ve won it twice already,” Kelsey said with a laugh. “You can’t compete with a ribeye steak sandwich, even as a funnel cake or a fried Twinkie!”
He emphasized that the Tulsa State Fair is one of their favorite events and that the OCA is treated very well by its staff. Over the years, OCA has earned regulars who attend the fair with OCA’s steak sandwiches at the top of their list of attractions.
“It gives us the opportunity to highlight the beef cattle industry,” Kelsey stated. “We hang some posters with information about cows. In Tulsa, a lot of folks are removed three, four, or five generations from the farm, so that is their exposure to the beef cattle industry. We want to give them a very good picture of who we represent.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
