WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — For the first time since 1978, a livestock judging team from Purdue University won top honors at the North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) in Louisville, Ky.

Tom Campbell, managing editor of Purdue Agricultural Connections, quipped it was a good thing team members traveled to the event in two vans. “Otherwise,” he said, “they wouldn’t have had room to haul all of the hardware back.” 

That hardware includes three trophies and seven plaques – perhaps apt for a team that spent the weekend before the show traveling around southern Indiana and northern Kentucky to practice evaluating cattle, pigs and sheep. In the actual contest, they evaluated animals, then spent the rest of the day explaining their reasons to a panel of judges.

Team member Breanna Lawyer told Campbell, “We were shocked when we heard our name called at the awards breakfast, but not really surprised. We knew all of the other schools because we have competed against them all year, and we knew how well-prepared we were.”