Pioneer Dairy Classic 2017

The Pioneer Dairy Classic is an annual dairy sale put on by the Pioneer Dairy Club (PDC).  This sale allows the community to come together and teach the dairy club members about the operations of a standard dairy sale and also helps with their animal handling experience.  About 70 dairy cattle are brought in that producers want sold and a live auction is held to do just that! This sale is also used as a fundraiser for PDC as they earn a percentage of the sales earned.

The work begins the spring semester before the sale where PDC has a chance to select 4 members to be on the sale committee.  Once those four are selected they start working on the sale which will be that following fall.  There is plenty of work that goes into making this sale a success, the committee forms groups to help throughout the summer by finding cattle and have people calling for donations.  Once students are all back at school, the sale committee will go through what they want the sale to look like and how other club members can help.  Students help paint boards and collect donations from other clubs on campus as well as ask for any more animal consignments.

Once sale week arrives members of the club are encouraged to get 12 hours of work at the sale. As an incentive students will receive a discount to the ADSA Conference PDC attends in the fall.   This conference is attended by all the collegiate dairy clubs in the Midwest where students learn about the dairy industry through workshops and provides many networking opportunities.  For the Pioneer Dairy Classic students can get their hours in by working barn duty, washing animals, doing morning and night chores, and working nightline (watching the cattle overnight). They are given many opportunities with a wide array of responsibilities that comes with handling livestock.   

On Monday of sale week, committee members and dairy club members will meet at the Grant County Fairgrounds in Lancaster to begin set-up.  Shavings are delivered in the morning allowing students to put up boards and lay down the pack for the cattle to be tied up and lay on.  The cattle arrive on the Tuesday of sale week.  They are washed onsite upon arrival providing enough time to get clipped and looking their best. Members will provide plenty of feed and the cattle are watered twice a day.  With barn duty club members are responsible with keeping the pack and cattle clean by constantly picking up waste. Once sale day comes there are students running the silent auction table, selling clothing, running the concessions stand, taking animals from the pack to the clippers to get touched up, leadsman that are leading the cattle, and runners. We also have the agribusiness club running the clerking station, help distribute bidding numbers and getting the animals paid for. Sale day, is all hands-on-deck and you get to see the dairy club come together and pull off a great sale. 

This year the sale was October 28th, 2017.  Next year you can plan on it being the last weekend in October as that is what it has consistently been year to year.  The club will start becoming busy with the sale in April. Do not be afraid to join dairy club and become a part of this amazing learning experience. 

Dairy club meet Tuesdays at 7:30pm in Russell 117.  You don’t have to have dairy experience at all to join this club.  Some events that are coming up next semester will be the ADSA conference, Ag day on Campus, bowling, different conferences offered, and much more.  If you have any questions about dairy club don’t be afraid to contact the president, Justin Nehls nehlsj@uwplatt.edu.