My name is Ellie Neil, I am 18 years old, and I am currently a senior at Wapsie Valley High School. I recently won Champion Market Heifer at the 2021 Iowa State Fair. My parents are Todd and Alisa Neil and I have a brother Cole, who is a sophomore at Iowa State University. We live on a farm on the outside of Fairbank which is a small town located in Northeast Iowa. Our family has a 75 head cow/calf operation along with hog buildings and grain farming. We currently have a fall club calf sale in September with the Ben and Nick Lovrien families. I am actively involved in softball, basketball, track, 4-H, FFA, Student Ambassadors, National Honor Society, and IJBBA. After graduating high school,
I plan on attending Iowa State University to pursue a career in agriculture. I have been involved in the cattle industry ever since I was young. My brother and I are actually the fifth generation on both sides of our family to exhibit and be involved in the cattle. We have taken turns showing market heifers for the last 13 years, but my first time in the ring was 2010, at the age of 7. It was at the Iowa Winter Beef Expo in the market heifer division with “Elsie”. She was reserve in her division, and from that point on, my family and I have always had at least one market heifer in the barn. “Molly”, this year’s market heifer, was purchased from Phil Halbach. We knew she was going to be special
from the moment she set foot on the farm. Her laid- back, loving personality made going out to the barn enjoyable every single day. Her structure was impeccable and she had that classic show calf look with the clean lines and elevated, sleek front end. When I took her to her first show, the Kansas Beef Expo in Hutchinson, she was Champion Market Heifer in both rings and went on to receive 5th overall. Throughout the winter and into the spring, Molly went to several more shows across the midwest, where she was Champion Market Heifer a total of 12 times and got in the top five in the market animal division almost every time. As summer was approaching, we stopped
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