Beef Bonanza is one of the largest cattle events in NSW with over 450 steers and heifers competing and over 800 students involved over the three days.

On Friday, St Joseph’s took part in the school steer challenge, competing against 35 other schools, where students had to prepare the steer, Bullseye, for his appearance in the ring. As part of this challenge, Waverley Station supplies a steer as well as one tonne of feed supplied by Alexander Downs.

The results for the School Steer Challenge were:

• Champion School - Herdsmen
• Parader’s Class: Year 5 student, Cambell Hinze was awarded Champion Primary Parader.

On Saturday, over 450 animals and 800 students took part in the open competition. It was an extremely successful day with St Joseph’s achieving the following results:

• Steer Class (unplaced): both Garry and Bullseye were in the heavyweight class. They weren’t big and soft enough to earn a ribbon. Kade (Year 5) and Diesel (Year 5) did a great job in leading these animals.
• Heifer Class (unplaced): Abby’s heifer, led superbly by Mason (Year 6), was unlucky in her class.
• Parader’s Class: there were over 120 students in this competition and we were able to secure 8 ribbons across 12 heats:
  • Diesel Hagan (Year 5) – 1^st
  • Mason Meyer (Year 6) – 1^st
  • Addie Hagan (Year 4) – 3rd
  • Dylan Gardiner (Year 5) – 3^rd
  • Georgia Straney (Year 5) – 4th
  • William Henley (Year 4) – 5th

After winning their heats, Mason and Diesel both qualified for the final, doing a tremendous job against the other ten competitors. Diesel was named the Champion Primary Parader. We are very proud to have two students in the top 120.

On the Sunday the students participated in Junior Judging where they had to judge four heifers, steers and bulls and answer questions about the animals.

With much excitement, we heard the names of our students called out for the Junior Judging Orals - Dylan Gardiner and Cambell Hinze. Both boys had 30 minutes to prepare a speech about the heifers and present to the crowd at the Beef Bonanza. Coming away with highly commended ribbons, both students did a fantastic job and made St Joseph’s a proud name, competing against 100 other students in the event.

To say we had a successful Beef Bonanza is an understatement. We came home with:

• 3 Grand Champion ribbons
• 7 Parader’s ribbons
• 2 ribbons for Junior Judging.

A huge congratulations to all students on their commitment, professionalism, good humour and respect for themselves, others, and more importantly, our animals.

Follow mnnews.today on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.