Our livestock judging team, seniors Sayler Beerwinkle, Clayton Stevenson, Katy Jones and sophomore Slade Beerwinkle got to take part in the state contest. The competition took place at Texas A&M University on April 27th. 

“We did not do that good, but we had fun,” Sayler Beerwinkle said. “The contest was pretty tough, in my opinion.” 

Livestock judging is several schools from around here that get teams together to compete. Teams consist of four people, but only the top three scores count. There’s steer, heifers, sheep, goats, pigs, and bulls that are required to judge. 

“We did okay we didn’t do as good as I’d liked for us to do,” Stevenson said. “But we’re very happy that we made it.” 

This was our team’s first time making it to state since he 90’s and enjoyed the experience of it. They got to go to Big Shots Golf and were able to eat some good food. 

“Tech’s Contest was a lot easier than A&M’s,” Stevenson said. “All those animals were really really close, so they were super hard to judge.” 

One of the judging coaches was parent Si Beerwinkle.

“He judged in college so he knew how to prepare us,” Sayler Beerwinkle said. “He helped us since 8th grade so it was pretty special that he was able to travel to the state contest with us.”

Si Beerwinkle enjoyed helping the judgers.

“I like going to the contests with them,” Si Beerwinkle said. “I think they had fun, also. I was lucky that my kids were on the team and were able to learn things that they can use in the future, and not just my kids, but Katy, Clayton, Trace, Braileigh and Reiner, cause they competed at these local contests, too.

Texas Tech hosts the area meet and only the top eight teams qualify, S-E was 7th.

“You’re not born gifted at livestock judging it takes practice,” Stevenson said. 

Plenty of work goes into getting ready for competition, having to take practice test, and hoping to score 50’s, which is the highest you can score. 

 “You kind of have to have an understanding of animals and an eye for judging in order to be successful,” Sayler Beerwinkle said. “But it was fun and I was glad I was able to be apart of it.”