Ohioan wins Distinguished Young Holstein Breeder award

to me,” Etgen said. “Fifteen years ago, I had nothing, and to be recognized with this award, it’s awesome.”

Starting small. Etgen is a firstgeneration dairy farmer. For as long as he can remember, he wanted to be a farmer. He grew up with friends who lived on farms, and he got involved through 4-H and FFA.

“There’s something to be said for somebody that works for themselves,” he said. “You work hard and you can sit down at the end of the day and knowing you accomplished something.”

His love for the industry and the cows took off when he got a job at Richard and Kim Steinke’s farm in high school. Working there was formative for Etgen, he said.

“I ended up quitting playing football because I wanted to work and make money,” he said. But it was about more than just the money.

“I enjoyed working with good cows and good people,” he said. “I started to see how it all worked. I would constantly ask questions and pick [Richard’s] brain and learn as much as I possibly could.”

Etgen delayed going to college to continue working on farms, but end- ed up at Ohio State University’s Agricultural Technical Institute campus, in Wooster, in 2009. There, he earned a degree in dairy cattle production and management. He participated in the dairy judging teams during his time there.

Family support. He married Heather Kennedy in 2013. The two met in the show ring, Etgen said. She grew up on her family’s dairy farm in Harrod and showed Ayrshire cattle.

The Kennedy family farm is where Etgen would end up building his first dairy farm. After farming in partnership for a couple of years after college, Etgen parted ways to start a small herd of his own.

Etgen and his wife approached her parents, Ron and Patti Kennedy, with a proposal. Their dairy facilities had been sitting empty for about a decade. Etgen wanted to bring about a dozen cows back there to start milking again. It’d be on the side, while he worked off-farm with Ron at his fabrication and welding shop.

In 2015, Etgen and his family were able to break ground on a new free stall barn and double-seven herringbone milking parlor at the family farm.

It was in large part thanks to his father-in-law, who was extremely supportive of Etgen’s dreams for the farm. Expanding the dairy was something Kennedy wanted to do but never got the opportunity to, Etgen said.

Etgen runs the farm full-time, operating on about 300 acres and milking 110 cows. His wife, Heather, is a school teacher. They have two young sons, Cash and Henry.

Key traits. The herd he has now is a dream come true for the boy who didn’t grow up on a dairy farm, but there’s always room for improvement. They’re not where they need to be yet, but “I think we’re getting there,” Etgen said.

He’s always admired herds across the country with high breed age average, or BAA, scores, which provides a way to score animals and herds across ages and stages of lactation. The Etgen-Way herd has a BAA of 111.4, making it one of the top 200 BAA herds in the country.

Etgen said he breeds for “high type and udders,” as well as cow families and sire stacks. Classification is also important to him.

“Life is too short to milk ugly cows,” he said, with a laugh. (Reporter Rachel Wagoner can be reached at 724-201-1544 or rachel@farmanddairy. com.)

(Continued from Page A4) the breakfast table later, I said, “Dad, I always thought the milk inspector was a really bad guy — kind of like the boogie man.”

Dad belly-laughed in a way that made everyone around him laugh, too. “Ah, that’s a good one. Whatever gave you that idea?” he asked as he caught his breath.

I was again speechless. I had learned a whole lot that morning. I still didn’t like scrubbing the parlor wall or wiping down the pipeline, but from that day on, I did it with far less trepidation for the consequences. In fact, it sort of took some of the gusto out of the scrub brush in my hand.

Even still, a part of that fearful respect must have stayed with me, because in later years, I remember being stunned when my parents sent flowers to the funeral home when this milk inspector passed away.

“He was a good fellow, doing his job just like we were doing, and he did it well,” my dad explained.

A good fellow who, as it turned out, lived by his Bible and did wonderful things for his community, and welcomed children to his door on Halloween.

Well, life is certainly full of surprises, isn’t it?