Honestly, I still don’t have many words to describe what it felt like to exhibit the Grand Champion Owned Percentage Female at the 2026 AJSA National Classic. Unbelievable is probably the best one. I’m Kenidey Effling from Highmore, South Dakota and I’ve been fortunate to experience a lot of great moments in the show ring, but this one will always be different. This win was about so much more than a banner. It represented hard work, patience, trust, and a reminder to have faith in God’s timing. To really tell this story, I have to start with the cow. Her name is Sherri, she is a November 2024 female, and she has quite the story of her own. My dad didn’t even tell me we bought her until about a week before I showed her for the first time. The only information I was given was, “She’s fast.” When my dad says something like that, I take it seriously. Because Sherri is a fall, we were able to take her to the 2025 National Classic. She was still pretty green and unsure of
everything going on around her, so at that point, our goal was simply to make it through the show ring together. We made it through the ring that day and it’s crazy to look back and see how far we’ve come in the past year. When we brought her home from Madison last summer, we decided the best thing we could do was give her some time. For about six months, she basically just got to be a cow. No baths or daily work, just feed and the chance to mature. Fast forward to Thanksgiving break. I was home from school, looked at her and told my dad, “Hey, I think she looks kind of good. Maybe we should take her to Denver.” He laughed at me, but we entered her anyway. By Christmas break, I was washing her every day because I was determined that we were going to take her to Denver, whether Dad was convinced yet or not. Somewhere along the way, something started to change. The more time I spent with Sherri, the more comfortable she became, and we started building a pretty special
bond. On Christmas Eve, I had my brother-in-law clip her, mostly because I was still trying to prove to my dad that I was right and we needed to take her. Apparently, it worked, because we eventually loaded her up and headed to Denver. Taking Sherri to Denver was a big step for both of us. It was a completely different environment with a lot going on. It was definitely an experience, but we got her shown, and at the time, that was really all we cared about. It felt like another step in the right direction. Even after Denver, I wasn’t completely sure if Sherri would make the trip to Junior Nationals. I went back to school, and when I came home for spring break, we decided to slick some cattle. For the month leading up to it, I kept hearing about how good Sherri looked. Turns out, they weren’t wrong. We slicked her, turned her back out to be a cow for a couple more months, and when May rolled around, we went back to washing her every day. With
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