For families like the Straders, livestock shows are a way of life. Preslie Strader, a Salem High School sophomore, says her family has shown sheep and cattle at a wide variety of events.
“We show crossbred sheep, natural, and speckles. We do crossbreeds of calves,” said Strader.
Strader cited her dad Willie as the one who got the family into the livestock show community. Her mother, Stephanie, said livestock has been a part of the family’s lives for a long time.
“(Preslie’s Dad) showed cattle growing up, and then our oldest son got into it, but rodeo was more his thing. Then, Bambi Merrifield got us into the sheep after she approached us. We took the cattle, and we ran with the sheep,” Stephanie said.
“We showed pigs for the first half, and then we started showing sheep, and we just got the cattle in the last three years,” said Preslie. She said of all three, showing cattle is her favorite.
“I’ve done it, it’s newer. Sheep is just the same every year,” she said. “I like cattle better.”
The Straders have a busy calendar filled with livestock shows around the state, and around the country.
“There’s a local jackpot series, and then we have our local county fair, and then we have state fair,” said Stephanie. “There’s a national circuit that starts in the fall, and it’s Kansas City, Louisville, Denver, and Arizona, and we hit all those as well.”
“I also want to hit one in Nebraska and one in South Dakota,” added Preslie.
Preparations for the shows often includes moving livestock, shearing, washing, feeding and more.
“For a local jackpot, we’ll just shear them all at my house, and then load everything up take it to the jackpot and just do the rest there. For State Fair and national shows, we'll load our sheep and a few things up, but usually we have a team that will start shearing them for us. We'll wash them, and then they'll shear them and get them done in about ten minutes,” said Preslie. “With my steers and my calves, we'll rinse them every other day leading up to the show or every day during the summer, and we take them to the show and then I get them to the fitting team. There’s about four people that will clip on them. The day of the show, about two hours ahead, we’ll wash them and feed them, and it takes an hour and a half to get them ready.”
Preslie and her family’s hard work has paid off, netting her a laundry list of livestock show accolades including, Reserve Champion Ewe and Reserve Champion Senior Sheep Showman at the 2022 Missouri State Fair; Grand Champion for Market Lamb, Senior Sheep Showman, and Crossbreed Heifer, at the Southern Missouri Jackpot Series; Champion Market Heifer, at the Ozark Spring Roundup; Reserve Champion Intermediate Sheep Showman Midwest Region, at the Beyond the Ring Junior Livestock Association show; and Reserve Champion Sheep Showman at Arizona Nationals.
Preslie says it’s the friendships, not the awards, that make the work worthwhile.
“I like the friendships, and traveling all the time,” said Preslie. “I like the animals.”
“It’s basically a full-time job,” said Stephanie. “We have sheep in the barn, because we do raise some show lambs. We start lambing in December, we have show lambs in the barn from March to January the following year. Then we have show cattle from November to August, so there’s never any down time.”
Stephanie said along with solid friendships, livestock showing has opened up other opportunities for Preslie as well.
“There are college livestock showing teams, there are college livestock judging teams, and those people are at all these shows. It’s no different than sports, when you have college coaches going to all the games. It’s the same thing in the livestock world,” said Stephanie.
“I get to help with Livestock Showing camp, we have Mizzou coming down this weekend to practice at our house. And, if you do well you get promoted on the website. You can get sponsorships,” added Preslie.
The Straders also play a part in helping other families get involved in livestock shows by selling animals to 4-H kids for their projects.
“Find a 4-H club, and you get to pick what you want to do,” said Stephanie. “Your leaders will then point you in the right direction of people that have cattle, sheep, and hogs. That’s kind of how we get people to come to us, is through 4-H. Once their project leaves our house, we like to help them with the feeding aspect. We do like to be involved with that aspect of it, and it’s giving the kids a bit of help too. We like to keep that close contact with all of our buyers that come through.”
Preslie says she will stop showing livestock at 18. After that, she wants to further her education.
“I want to study either ag business or animal science with artificial insemination and embryo transplant,” said Preslie.
“We’ll still be involved in the show side when it comes to the breeding aspect of it,” said Stephanie. “We are a livestock family. I’ve grown up with cattle, we added the sheep in. It’s just an extension of what we’ve already done. We genuinely just love the livestock industry.”
