4-H clubs in Phillips County show animals at 101st Fair

This year's 4-H Beef Show featured a couple of playful Charolais steers that wanted to play keep away from even the most experienced 4-H showman. It also featured a repeat champion showman and a Charolais steer that broke the recent streak of Angus winners in market beef.

This year's market beef winner was Petrie, who belonged to Malta High Senior Chanel Lett.

"I'm feeling pretty good and I'm pretty proud of my steer," Lett said with a smile.

She talked about the name "Petrie," which came from The Land Before Time movies.

"I babysit this girl named Adalee," Lett said. "She named him for me."

Petrie tipped the scales at 1505 pounds thanks to a healthy diet of barley and corn.

"He's more finished than the rest of them were," Lett said. "He's got more meat on him than he has fat. He ate more and he finished well."

The 4-H judge was Laurel's Seth Keas, who is originally from Kansas.

"We had a very nice steer show this morning," Keas said. "A lot of quality steers, lots of rib and muscle in them; the right kind that excelled both in pasture settings, feed lot settings and in the ring as well."

Keas explained why Lett's steer stood out from the rest.

"Our champion steer today was one that you just liked a lot of things about," Keas said. "Really attractive from the profile, really big ribs, square top kind of a steer, tons of muscle and dimension down his top and back out through his hip, the most in the show and still smooth and even in terms of his degree of finish so that he has an excellent chance of grading on the rail as well for high quality steaks."

Lett's favorite part of 4-H was working with the animals.

"I love working with steers and working with my animals," Lett said.

Graduated Saco senior Channing Mavencamp was crowned Grand Champion in senior showmanship for the second year in a row at the fair. Rheanna Messerly took second and Kendall Koss took third even though his steer gave him issues early in the show.

"He did an excellent job staying calm," Keas said.

Mavencamp displayed even better control than he had at last year's fair as his run this season was very calm, which was the plan.

"Staying calm (was key)," Mavencamp said noting that his steer didn't give him any problems.

Mavencamp won Grand Championship for both Market and Showmanship in 2015.

This year Mavencamp showed off "Slim," his 1280 pound Black Angus steer.

During his display, Mavencamp was asked a couple of questions by Keas. First Mavencamp was asked what he would change about his steer.

"His ears," Mavencamp said. "I just don't like them."

Then he was asked what problems the beef industry were facing.

"The cattle prices and the EPA regulations on everything," Mavencamp said.

Mavencamp won second in senior pig showmanship and made the final heat in pig market but his favorite event in 4-H is steer showing.

Mavencamp plans to attend Montana State University Northern in Havre for Agricultural Mechanics, a branch of their diesel program. He also plans to ranch in Phillips County after college.

In the Pig Show, Saco's Brent Yeska won the advanced junior class in Showmanship with his 228 pound belted Yorkshire/Hampshire sow named Jerrie.

The name came from his father's best friend, Jerey McEwen.

"I just kept my eyes on the judge and smiled the whole time," Yeska said.

Yeska admitted that Jerrie did give him some issues after other pigs got a little territorial.

So what did Yeska feed Jerrie to gain close to 200 pounds in his lifetime?

"The feed is called Grand Champion Hog Medicated from CHS," Yeska said. "I feed him twice a day."

Yeska also mentioned that he worked with Jerrie very hard three times before the 4-H show.