Were it a normal year, the National Western Stock Show would be nearing the end of its 2021 event, with more than 700,000 going through the gates.

One of the most anticipated events of the stock show, the annual Junior Livestock Auction, would have occurred Friday. The 2020 auction raised more than $1 million for youth exhibitors and scholarship funds, with a record $155,000 for the grand champion steer.

The National Western scholarship fund relies on four events during the Stock Show to raise its annual budget of $550,000, and gives 100 scholarships between $2,500 and $15,000 per year to former Stock Show exhibitors studying agriculture, rural medicine and veterinary science at colleges in Colorado and Wyoming.

But those events, like the Stock Show, didn’t happen in 2021, the result of caution over the coronavirus pandemic. It left hundreds of thousands of exhibitors, vendors, ranchers, rodeo participants, and fans missing the state’s largest salute to the agriculture industry, one of Colorado’s top economic drivers.

When Stock Show officials announced in September that the show would be canceled, it was already too late for many who planned to compete in the livestock show that leads to the junior livestock auction. Ranchers who rely on the stock show to help sell their livestock were left out in the cold. Thousands of participants in the horse shows and rodeos also mourned the loss of the 2021 show and the impact on their livelihoods.

They’ll be back in 2022, but worry that some in the public may not. As Kendra McConnell, the horse show manager, put it: “I hope the public comes back and remembers our industry. We share our lifestyle with others. Don’t forget what we do here.”

A tight time window

Perhaps the saddest impact is on youth, the 4-H and Future Farmers of America members who show livestock in preparation for the auction. About 220 enter the National Western every year, and 96 make it to the auction.

A good auction sale can fund college, training or future livestock endeavors. In 2020, Alli Stromberger of Iliff showed the grand champion market hog, Monster, which brought in a record bid of $100,000.

She had already bought the pig she would have shown in January, according to Ben Cooley of Sterling, who raises show pigs.

About 550 compete for the August lottery drawing just to get into the Stock Show, Cooley explained. Then it’s off to buy the pig. Yes, the pig isn’t purchased until just months before the event.

It’s a time-sensitive issue. Cooley said pigs are only about seven months old at harvesting age; they’re born in the summer and ready for purchase in August or September. By stock show time, they’re at 260 pounds or more.

“Pigs grow fast,” Cooley said.

It isn’t only the pigs that were being readied for exhibition, Cooley said. “All of those kids who had gotten in for the pig show, lambs, goats and steers were already on feed. All those animals were [already] purchased by exhibitors.”

This isn’t a situation where you can hang onto the animal and exhibit them the next year. There’s a small window when the animals reach a required weight limit. “You buy a specific animal for the show,” he explained.

There were alternatives to the National Western for some exhibitors, including Stromberger, Cooley said. Shows in Texas and Oklahoma have been more than happy to take those entries, but it isn’t the same. For one, there’s no big money auction that can finance an exhibitor’s future, he said. “These alternative shows don’t have that opportunity,” and that becomes a financial burden for the exhibitors.

It’s also something of a game of chance, Cooley said. All those kids who purchase know it’s tough to get into the Stock Show. “It was the opportunity that you could have that reward in the end. That’s what was taken away from them.”

It’s tough for him, too. The pigs he breeds are high-dollar animals with prize genetics. “You make decisions to breed quite a bit in advance” to meet customer demand. If his customers are discouraged and take a year off from showing, that cuts into his bottom line for the entire year. “That uncertainty has been challenging.”

The National Western “drives the bus in our industry,” Cooley added. “We survived 2020, but we can’t have another year like it. It’s vitally important these shows happen.”

Missed opportunities

Its impact isn’t lost on other industries, either.

Take horse shows, for example. Kendra McConnell is the horse show manager for the National Western. Youth programs outside of the stock show also were impacted by the pandemic, she said.

The horse shows in January are the lead-off events for the horse associations every year, she said. Competitors can earn points or prize money that will help them later in the season.

Thousands participate in the horse shows, whether it’s the riders, farriers (who shoe horses), vets, trainers, those involved in the production of the horse shows and more than 450 volunteers, McConnell said.

The show is also an opportunity to market horses, find stallions to breed with mares, or for trainers to solicit new customers. McConnell pointed out that one company, Ames Construction, uses its company mascot, a draft horse known as a Percheron, to market the company.

The biggest reaction from those who aren’t at the National Western this week is sadness. “This is a part of their life, a tradition,” she said. 

Clancy Anderson, livestock manager for the National Western, said the show is where ranchers, especially those in remote areas far from Denver, find buyers for their livestock or breed opportunities their cows and bulls. “They’re selling genetics,” Anderson explained.

At the Stock Show yard, a rancher from Nebraska might bring some of his best cattle to Denver, not only to showcase the animals but to expose his cattle to new customers. A rancher showing as many as 10 cattle shows consistency, which is important to customers.

“Nowhere else in the United States allows that kind of marketing opportunity to rural ranchers,” Anderson said.

It’s also a matter of timing. “You can’t stop time,” he said. A rancher might bring a one-year-old bull that has to be sold at that age, from a genetic standpoint.

The livestock industry has managed something of a workaround for the pandemic, Anderson said. A lot of groups were able to coordinate other events and serve the industry, although those events didn’t take place in Colorado.

“The cool thing is that the ag community is used to facing hardship: droughts, higher prices, cost increases, a calf dies. They’re used to losses” but they’re resilient and persistent people. “When one falls short, the others pick up the slack.”

The livestock business is still done with trust and a handshake, Anderson said, and there’s a huge sense of community rather than one of rivalry. But “there’s no sense in dwelling on it.”

Anderson and others still look forward to what comes next.

“How lucky we are to have something so great that we miss so much,” he said. “I’m excited for what is to come. If 2020 taught us anything, it is that change is inevitable and to keep up with the times, and to make it a better experience for everyone.”