Grandpa still says he paid too much money for a steer. However, the memories that were made that show year between Sniper and Denton were endless!! Everyone loved Sniper and he has been a pasture ornament since retiring from the show pen. Clayton ended up with a Simmi Steer who ended up not wanting to be a show steer, and Houston an Angus heifer. They traveled to a few county fairs and state fairs their first year. At that point, Denton did not have a device to hold the calf ’s head up, he just held the lead and walked his steer around. A family friend joined him in the ring the first couple of years to keep him safe in case he had to let go. That duty has since been transitioned over to brother Houston. The first couple of years in the show pen were just a learning curve. After the first year, the family transitioned over to showing heifers. Then, in 2019, Doc came up with an idea
to attach to Denton’s walker, so that he could show his calves more competitively by holding their heads up, but the trick was not attaching the calf to the walker. “We had to develop something that wouldn’t get Denton in a bind if his calf spooked, so after some developing, we got a prototype made by the local welding shop” Doc said. The prototype did work but ended up poking Denton’s Hereford heifer Sparkles in the eye, so a modification had to be made. Fast forward to 2020, and the device that Denton uses now is adjustable so as the calf grows, it moves up and down and allows more flexibility throughout the year. In 2020, the twins were unable to join their dad, Grandpa and Brother for the JNHE, because they had some major orthopedic surgery and were in inpatient rehab at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago. They watched their Hereford heifers make their march across the Kansas City Show Ring with brother Houston on the
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getting into showing cattle. He mentioned it to the boys’ grandfather, Steve Stapleton, and then grandpa mentioned it to Doc and Joni. What seemed like a far out idea, made complete sense to the kids. All except for Houston who was “NOT going to show cows”. The Head Brothers sale approached quickly, and the family headed out to the farm in Blue Mound to see if they could find some prospects for the upcoming show year. Denton walked out in his walker into a pen of steers and sat down on a tire. When a Hereford Steer came up to Denton and very inquisitively checked him out. They both were very smitten with each other, thus making it known that steer would be Denton’s.
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