Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is visiting with Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture, Blayne Arthur, about the development and growth of Cattlemen’s Congress.
Looking back on the first year of Cattlemen’s Congress (2020), Arthur said there were many moving pieces to make the show come together. After the cancellation of the National Western Stock Show, the Fort Worth Stock Show, and others, many cattle producers were left with no place to showcase their cattle after plenty of hard work.
Thankfully, Arthur said, the state of Oklahoma has a governor who was supportive of the show and willing to help turn plans into action.
“You can start moving all these pieces, but it was still a very, kind of uncertain time,” Arthur said.
Many individuals came together to offer Cattlemen’s Congress to the livestock industry, Arthur said, and the people of Oklahoma City worked hard to bring it all together in a short time frame to give cattlemen across the United States an option to showcase their genetics.
“It was a pretty monumental task to have that happen, and I don’t know that any of us would have imagined it becoming an annual event,” Arthur said.
Falling somewhere in the middle of the National Western and Fort Worth Stock Shows, decision-makers worked hard to ensure that Cattlemen’s Congress would be a competitive national show with many opportunities for attendees to gain exposure.
“That is why you see, certainly, the bull portion of Cattlemen’s Congress, you see the show portion, you see the sales, but then also there is a fat steer show, and prospect show,” Arthur said. “All of those pieces kind of came together because folks were gearing animals towards a certain date, and those shows weren’t going to happen.”
Cattlemen’s Congress is a top-tier event, Arthur said, and has continued to create that exposure for those in the cattle industry even after its pilot year.
“We in Oklahoma, of course, feel like we have some of the best cattle producers and some of the best cattle that you will find, but you want to bring the best folks of everywhere to realty highlight that,” Arthur said. “
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