CLARE, Mich. – Two beef producers in Michigan were at the White House for a Fourth of July cookout serving hamburgers provided from their cattle.

Don Nevill and Roger Noonan were among several thousand people on the White House lawn for the cookout and fireworks show honoring people who served in the military, and their families.

They didn’t get a chance to meet President Donald Trump, but they saw him up close waving to the crowd from a White House balcony.

Both men described being there as a once in a lifetime opportunity made even more special from having their beef used to help to feed the guests.

“I was very proud to be there,” Nevill said.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” Noonan said.

Both men were invited by JBS Foods, one of the largest processors and packagers of beef in the world.

The company was a supplier of ground beef for the cookout and had recently processed some of the cattle belonging to Nevill and Noonan at their facility in Plainwell in the southwest lower peninsula of the state.

JBS Foods, using a tracking system, determined some of their meat reserved for the festivities at the nation’s capital came from Nevill and Noonan.

The company then called both men inviting them to the occasion, but their answers didn’t come right away.

Nevill said he and his wife, Penny, already had plans to go camping with their grandchildren, but the grandchildren without hesitation told them “You’re going to the White House.”

It took only about 15 minutes for him to call back and accept the invitation.

Noonan said he wasn’t going to go at first because of his busy schedule but called back to accept the invitation.

He and his wife, Beth, decided their two sons, who also work at the farm, could fill the gap until they returned.

“I was very appreciative of being there,” Noonan said.

Nevill, 69, keeps about 500 head of Angus cows in Clare, where four previous generations of family members farmed mostly on different properties since 1872.

About one-third of his cattle go in for processing while the rest are used as breeding stock purchased by other farmers to raise and finish.

He also raises corn and hay as feed for his cattle and sells a lot of his hay to farmers in Florida.

In addition, he owns Nevill Supply, a store he founded in 1982 that provides fencing, livestock equipment, water pipe and other farm related merchandise like baler twine. There’s also a mill at the store for making wooden fence posts used in farming.

Besides hamburgers, Nevill said there were hot dogs, potato salad and other traditional cookout fixings but he was most surprised by how friendly everybody was toward each other at what he thought would be a more gala type setting.

“It was just like a good old hometown everybody knows everybody celebration. It was fantastic,” he said.

Noonan, 69, a fourth-generation farmer, has about 200 head of cattle in Maple City. He also raises about 120 acres of cherries, 200 acres of corn along with 150 acres of small grains such as rye.

“I’m sure glad we got invited and I’m sure glad we went,” he said.

Both men also stayed an extra day or two after the cookout to go sight-seeing on what was their first ever trip to the nation’s capital.

Noonan said he went to places like the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, where he watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Initially, Nevill said he didn’t consider the invitation that big of deal, but it didn’t take long after putting down the phone for him to start feeling “blown away by this opportunity. I don’t feel I realized the gravity of it but a few minutes later I’m like you’re going to the White House,” he said.

Nevill is an active member of the Michigan Cattlemen’s Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.