10/09/2026
It's been a busy couple of months. Special thank you to the judging teams of Fort Scott Community College coached by Clay Brillhart, NEO College coached by Braylon Spears, NOC College coached by Thomas Owings, and Dexters Small's crew for coming over and evaluating our livestock and training the next generation!! Also special thank you to the Nebraska State Fair for having Curtis Hewlett judge the Wether Sire & Wether Dam show.
Evaluating livestock is such a privilege, but holds even more responsibility than ever due to the extreme cost many of these projects accumulate throughout the year. This has led to more scrutiny of all judges at all levels. Many of the things we hear from the people watching these shows are is this judge truly qualified? Many will say they are qualified only if they have raised that particular species for many years at a high level, also just as many will say they should only be judging if they were an elite judger in college or have a resume of judging big time shows. In short are they primarily a breeder or a proven elite judge who does not raise that species.
We asked Curtis what he thought about this and he said "Honest to goodness some of my favorite judges for sheep in the industry raise pigs. It doesn't matter what there background is, what matters is do they know what structure is, do they really know that species main issues of the day. Instead of just criticizing the process the livestock industry should come together and design written out standards for how shows are supposed to be judged. How are you supposed to handle a sheep, how are they supposed to move, what traits and pieces should be held to the highest esteem. Should we go to a point system or maintain traditional judging but with a national set of expectations for each judge out there. To me this is more important than bashing those men and women giving up there time trying to do there best to select the animal they believe is best. With set standards comes more consistency in the judging ring and allows that judge to point to those standards anytime an issue may arise. Even with standards no judge will still judge exactly the same, but you would start to see more consistency, and this would also allow those who run shows to better evaluate those judges performances after each show."
