John Sullivan selling show supplies at the start of Sullivan Supply.
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elieve it or not, cattle have not always been fit under bright lights, shown in near invisible
small town of Dunlap, Iowa. Two industry leading companies that have individually helped shape how we show livestock. John has a background in Agriculture. He was involved as a herdsman for Purebred operations; the last of which was Little Mondeaux Limousin in Genoa, Nevada – the owner of Tombstone Pizza. In 1989, he and Dede moved back to Dunlap. At the age of 23, the Sullivan’s did not have the capital to buy land or cows – so that was out, and they got into the show supply business. “I didn’t know if there would be two people or 25 people working for us some day, I just wanted to get involved somehow and make a living in the livestock show industry – anyway I could.” John attests.
Due to their young age at the founding of Sullivan Supply, John and Dede were naïve to many of the challenges starting a company from absolutely nothing would present. If you know John Sullivan, however, you know he is not afraid of a challenge. When you team youthful ignorance with a competitive nature, you can fight through anything and be better because of it. Sullivan Supply had extremely humble beginnings. What started in John’s mom’s garage, moved to an old grocery store in Dunlap. As it was not equipped with an office or heater, they went across the street to the local appliance store and got the biggest boxes they had, refrigerator boxes. To form an office, Sullivans taped two of the boxes together and covered them with blue tarp to hold in heat
halters or had the finishing touches of fancy paint that matched their hair color identically. For those of us who have been playing this game long enough, the transition from the good ole’ days to livestock shows as we now know them has happened gradually, but drastically just the same. The name behind the curtain orchestrating some of the greatest innovations in the livestock industry is none other than Sullivan. With nothing more than a passion and a dream, John and Dede Sullivan pioneered Sullivan Supply and Sullivan Farms in the
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