Lee Pitts: The Best Summer Of My Youth

I've had a lifelong love affair with Angus cattle despite an inauspicious beginning to my cattle career. Near the end of my freshman year in high school I got a $350 loan from a kind-hearted banker and bought the meanest Angus steer that ever lived. He was also a chronic bloater. My ag teacher picked him out for me and that's the last time I ever let anyone buy cattle for me.

I named my steer Abe, built a nice pen and kept it spotless. I had to feed Abe every morning by six because that's when he wanted his breakfast and if I was one minute late he'd ball and wake up my lazy neighbors. I invested $300 total in Abe and spent over 350 hours cleaning his pen, feeding, grooming and trying to gentle him. Despite his angry nature I loved that steer and cried when they hauled him away. Interestingly, the only time I ever won showmanship at any fair was with crazy Abe! In the final analysis I lost $13.50, thus establishing the pattern for the rest of my checkered cattleman career.

Despite the heavy financial loss I couldn't wait until my Sophomore year to do it all over again. I'd learned a thing or two the first time, so I wasn't going to let my teacher pick a steer for me at the auction barn. I did my research, contacted Mr. Dow of the Superior Angus Ranch and immediately fell in love with an Angus steer I named Abner. He looked just like the poster of the ideal Angus steer the Angus Association sent me. Abner was the Grand Champion county fair steer and overnight I became the richest kid in my class.

The next year I went back to the same place and bought a steer I named George after my grandfather, which I'm sure touched him deeply. George was also a County Fair Grand Champion and the minute a photo of George appeared in the county newspaper mentioning how much money I got per pound I soon became my parents's loanshark. I also bought 4 registered Angus heifers and a bull because I'd fallen in love with showing cattle and going to fairs. I wanted my own mini-show string so I joined the American Angus Association, framed my membership certificate and covered all the walls in my room with pictures of showring winners.

The next summer I went to 5 fairs, including the state fair. Due to my age, at two of the fairs I had to be chaperoned by a local FFA advisor and my grandpa accompanied me to the others. He loved the show road as much as I did and I put him to work with a pitchfork picking up the hot ones, if you know what I mean.

I showed my cattle in both the junior and senior divisions and usually won in the junior division classes, often because I had the only animal. But when I went up against the large purebred breeders my bull stood dead last every time. This was due to a lack of conformation and conditioning and because the pros cheated. They heated the backs of their animals with a heat lamp and rolled them with a rolling pin to make them flatter, dyed their cattle jet black, fudged on their birthdays and injected air to make their animals appear more muscular, or their udders fuller. I know all this because an old herdsmen took pity on me and taught me the tricks of the trade.

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