GAMBIER – Luke McKee knows very well that this will be his last ride.
It shows in his eyes, which are sharp and focused just after his 5:30 a.m. wake-up call on Wednesday. It shows in the way he moves throughout his family’s barn, quick and with a purpose, no wasted motion as he crosses things off his feeding checklist.
It shows in the way he talks about what the next week means to him – his last time participating in the Knox County Fair as a Junior Fair Board and 4-H member. McKee has been showing animals on the same, sacred soil since the age of six. A recent graduate of Mount Vernon High School, this will be his last go around.
“I’m sad because I’d like to do a couple more years, especially because I have some friends that are a year or two younger than me and seeing them still compete, I’d want to be right there competing with them. But at some point, you’ve just gotta call it quits and move on and get to know other stuff, too,” McKee said. “It’s starting to become more of a reality.”
As the thick morning mist rises from the green pastures surrounding his family’s farm, McKee carefully measures out rations for each of his pigs and steers.
The 2017 Fair King is experimenting with a different feed today, one that McKee says “is mostly fluff” and fills his animals out, giving them a more robust appearance on show day. McKee methodically mixes the feed with water in 15-minute increments, feeling the upper sides of each steer, between the belly and the spine, to see how much time it will take for each one to fill out.
There is a method to his madness; McKee has been a consistent Junior Fair ribbon contender over the past decade, since he started showing cattle and pigs with 4-H at the age of eight.
McKee has won or came in second in showmanship in his division for seven of the last ten years, placing every year. He won ‘Master Showman’ in pigs last year, was a senior champion for showing pigs and was a reserve ‘Showman of Showmen.’
He has placed third overall in born, bred and raised steer, and has won reserve champion for simmental steer.
“I’ve won a decent bit,” McKee said, smiling wryly when asked about his past success. “There’s the select few that have probably done maybe a little bit more than me, and there’s also others that are going to win more than me just because of what animals they’ve been able to get their hands on for the fair. And others probably will never experience winning something. So I’d consider myself pretty freakin’ lucky to win as much as I have.
“But I’ve also worked 10 years-plus at it, so I expect it a little bit. But there’s kids who have worked at it 10 years and haven’t won anything. It depends on what you put into it, I guess.”
This year, McKee will be taking his two steers, Elliot and Floyd, to the fair. He will also be taking his angus heifer, Larissa, his barrow pig, Gypsum, and a turkey of his choice.
As the sun rises over the Gambier hills, McKee takes a second to think about what he’s leaving behind at the fairgrounds after this week. It was there where he learned about sacrifice and what it takes to win, there where he developed a passion that he carries with him to this day.
On those fairgrounds, he experienced the elation of victory and the disappointment of defeat – he noted that he’s placed last many times – and he learned how to accept it all and adapt.
But he’s having a hard time accepting this.
***
Speaking over the loud buzz of the rotating fan set up in front of his steers’ pens, McKee glowed about the artificial insemination process.
Well, more so about Floyd, the first cow McKee raised by doing so.
McKee consulted with cow experts and took an artificial insemination class before purchasing semen and breeding Floyd’s mother, which McKee owned as well. It was a special moment for McKee, who feels a deep connection with the 17-month-old steer he raised from day one.
While McKee has other passions – he played football his senior year of high school, he hangs out with friends who don’t show animals, and he is interested in math and science – he is quite unlike most of his peers.
Even though he stays up late some summer nights, as teenagers are expected to do, he still rises every morning before dawn to check things off the list.
When his brothers took interests in other things – his younger brother, Caleb, loves football, while his older brother, Jacob, studies business at Ohio University – Luke latched onto his duties at the family farm.
He became increasingly interested in animal nutrition after working at G&G Feed and Supply in high school, learning about tailored feeding plans and serving local customers until the store closed last August. This fall, he will attend Ohio State University-Wooster, majoring in animal science.
Ultimately, McKee wants to be an animal nutritionist because he has a passion for fine meat. He wants to help others use nutrition to produce the best cut, improving the quality of meat sold to the consumer.
“One of my biggest things I enjoy, or want to learn more about, is feeding the animal to be the best of their ability so they when you get them on the rails, once they’re butchered, to grade the best and to have the proper finish,” McKee said.
“I want to know how to feed the animals and get everybody to have the best meats so that everybody can experience the greatness of actually true-finished market animal,” McKee said.
By now, McKee can quickly tell an unfinished cut from one that had proper nutrition. McKee believes that nutrition is somewhat of a lost art, as many don’t understand how drastically it can affect the final product.
“You could really change a bad animal to a not-so-bad animal just from feeding, and you can also take a very good animal and screw it way up because of your feeding,” he said.
McKee attends expositions year-round to show his cattle against the best and make connections with others who share a similar passion. He just got back from Madison, WI, where he took his angus heifer, Larissa, and learned about potential job opportunities in the future.
While McKee is certainly excited about a potential career in animal nutrition, he’ll miss the competition of the fair.
At his heart, McKee is a winner.
One of the reasons he has taken such a strong passion for nutrition is because he’s needed to use it to outplace other showmen – ones that might have spent more money for a steer or a pig than he has.
McKee raises show cattle that were born on his family’s farm, from cows that roam in the pasture behind their barn (the oldest is said to be 17 years old). This saves him money and allows him to form a long-term bond with each calf.
But sometimes, as McKee learned in Madison, the best show cattle are simply bought. So he has used nutrition to fight for every inch, outsmarting other showmen with his knowledge of a proper diet.
McKee is even competitive about his turkeys, which he just bought in March and will be showing at the fair for the first time this year.
When McKee was selecting baby turkeys from a box months ago, he chose the ones that pecked others – not the ones that were being pecked. His rationale was simple.
“For me, it’s more of a competition. So if you go to a football game and you have a kid that doesn’t like to hit or compete as much as someone else does, the other one’s probably going to get the starting position,” McKee said. “And that’s what I thought with the turkeys; it kind of makes sense to get one that wants to fight for everything.”
McKee’s competitive mindset is reflected through his animals’ performance. Floyd and Elliot both weigh in at a lean, tough 1,315 pounds, built like brutal defensive ends, but docile all the same. Larissa weighs 1,400 pounds while Gypsum, his barrow, hits 276 pounds, the sturdy quarterback of the crew. McKee has yet to decide which turkey he will take to the fair, but his heaviest at the moment weighs 45 pounds.
“45 pounds of greatness,” he says, walking out of turkey house with a smile. “Lots of Thanksgiving meals this year.”
***
Heading back to the barn, McKee explains how he typically washes his steers every morning.
He’ll make sure to clean out their pens after he washes them, letting the steers air dry before they return to a nice, clean pen.
It’s evident that McKee cares deeply for his animals – the way he pats Floyd and Elliot on the head before feeling their sides, how he makes sure to get up early to feed and bathe them so that too much hot air doesn’t fill the barn before the day begins.
But in McKee’s eyes, this relationship goes both ways.
“They teach me a lot, I think,” McKee said. “They teach me patience, because sometimes they don’t cooperate and you have to learn how to handle them, and even if something isn’t going the way that you hoped you just gotta go with it and work through it.”
Just like McKee will miss the fair, both for the competition and the tradition, the fair will miss him. Larry Hall, the Knox County 4-H extension educator, has known McKee since he began in 4-H 10 years ago.
“I think he sees the bigger picture,” Hall said of McKee. “He is all about helping other people and sharing his knowledge and his skills with other people, regardless of where they come from or who they are.”
Hall noted that McKee was a leader in his time at 4-H, serving as an example for others his age (and sometimes older) to follow.
“When he was a camp counselor he didn’t shirk from the duties that were not the fun jobs, the high visibility or recognition jobs,” Hall said. “Whatever needed to be done, he took the initiative and tackled it.
“When there was a barn that needed cleaned up, he picked up a broom and a shovel and did it himself. He didn’t stand around and wait for someone else to do it. Before he waits for a task to be done, he’ll do it himself – and he’ll do it in front of you if need be.”
Though McKee’s days as a 4-H member are numbered, he looks forward to staying involved with the program in the years to come. He wants to pay it forward, sharing the lessons he’s learned with the coming generations.
“I’ll be able to work on some of my cows and updating my program so that I can sell to the younger 4-Hers, so that they can get some of my best stuff, rather they me getting it and I have to sell them something different,” McKee said. “I can sell them my best and try to help them win. And at some point that becomes cool, too, because you get to help those families enjoy those experiences of winning.”
Hall expects McKee, who has been a leader in the program, to help out in spots. But he also expects him to fly the nest at some point, using what he’s learned to chase career goals.
“We’re just shifting gears here. I don’t think we’re losing him, but he’s maturing and moving on and I think he’ll continue to help some group in some way down the road,” Hall said. “It’s a great deal of satisfaction for me to have the privilege of working with Luke and people like him. I’d love to have them on for a few more years, but it’s time for them to move on in life.”
With four days until he takes his animals down to Mount Vernon’s fairgrounds for the last time, past the gravel backroads and into the valley of competition, McKee struggles to grasp the fact that he will be closing a chapter soon that has filled two-thirds of his life.
In the short-term, he is excited for a shot at redemption. His steer last year had trouble cooperating on the big stage, which resulted in “probably the worst I’ve done in beef showmanship,” McKee said.
This year, with an experienced angus heifer at his side and a variety of different competitions to show in, McKee is optimistic about his farewell tour.
“I hope I do good enough, I’d like to get in the top 10 with the steers. But I’ve seen some pretty good steers out there this year and people have also worked really hard with their steers too, so it’s going to be a little challenging because they can go out and buy one that’s better than ours. But since we raise ours, we have what we have and that’s what we go with,” McKee said.
“But I’m thinking my pig will do decent enough in showmanship and the show. I expect to do decent enough with everything.”
Even in his last year, McKee is sure he’ll still get nervous before competition. He always does.
“Yeah, I get the bugs, I get nervous,” he said. “I think I’m most nervous about just how everything will do, I guess. I’m not nervous because of not doing it before, I just get nervous because I don’t want to do bad.”
It’s nearly 7 o’clock on Wednesday morning and the sun is now over the trees, filling in the hills and greeting McKee for the day. He’s back to work, preparing the cows for their baths and checking more things off the family’s list.
He has little time to think too far ahead, as this is arguably the most important week of the year and he knows it.
He can get sentimental later. For now, he’s all business. One last chance to compete on the county’s grandest stage.
“This time of the year is pretty special to me,” McKee says with a smile.
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