A team of four Wisconsin 4-H members was the top overall team at the Invitational Youth Dairy Cattle Judging Contest at the North American International Livestock Exposition (N.A.I.L.E) in Louisville, Ky. on Sunday Nov. 6.  Eighty youth on 21 teams from across the USA competed at this event.  The 4-H team from Wisconsin placed first overall and was the second place team for total reasons.  The team was also first place in the Jersey breed and second place in the Guernsey, Brown Swiss and Holstein breeds and third in the Ayrshire breed.

NAILE DAIRY JUDGING CHAMPS: The winning Wisconsin 4-H Dairy Judging team members are, from left, Ben Powers, Sara Harn, Lizi Endres and John Klossner.

Team members were Ben Powers from Dunn County, John Klossner from Green County, Sara Harn and Lizi Endres, both from Dane County.  They qualified to be members of this team at the State 4-H Dairy Judging contest in July being the top four individuals from the contest who were not on a team that had already qualified for a national contest.

The team members were also successful individually with all four team members placing in the top ten for reasons and the top 15 overall.  Ben was the champion individual in the overall contest, dropping only 9 total points in placings for the day, and was ninth in reasons.  Lizi was the champion individual for reasons, talking a contest high of 49 points on the Jersey cow class, and was fifteenth overall. Sara was the third high individual overall and seventh in reasons and John was the seventh high individual overall and eighth in reasons.

The teams' win at Louisville comes after a long year of dairy judging for the four members who started practicing early this spring with their county programs and continued to practice with their county coaches and with Beth and Mark Heinze through the fall. Congratulations to the team members and to all of the volunteers and farms who helped make this team successful.