50th Anniversary Past Presidents
Panel Questions
In means of celebrating the last 50 years of Simmental in Canada, Simmental Country is asking those that have been involved from the beginning of the breed for their input on the past, present and future of Simmental, Individuals involved in this panel questionnaire come from different backgrounds from various parts of the country.
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1 Explain your background and involvement within the Simmental breed – past and present. brian McCarthy: After University and a brief stint with Ag Canada I returned to the family farm in 1976. My first Simmentals had been purchased in 1973. Since then, I have been developing a polled purebred herd, Spring Creek Simmentals. Along the way, I served on many boards: Regina Bull Sale Committee, Sask. Performance Testing Association, Sask. Simmental Association and am a past president of the Canadian Simmental Association. We showed cattle at Agribition for over 20 years. We now have Bull and Female sales annually on the ranch.
Ken Lewis: I became exposed to the Simmental Breed in the early 70’s, we artificially inseminated with Fullblood Simmental on our commercial cows which was the start of our purebred herd. We’ve shown Simmental cattle across Canada and parts of the US, had joint and on farm female sales and will host our 33rd annual on farm bull sale this February. On the political side, I have served on both the Provincial and Canadian Simmental boards and am currently the Simmental Foundation Chair.
myles glasman: I was born into a family involved in the black Angus business. Black Eagle Farms competed and sold quality cattle throughout North America and Mexico through the 1960’s and 1970’s. The beef business had some hard times and when the ‘exotics’ came on the scene in the late 1960’s there was excitement and renewed optimism. We experimented with some of the new breeds Chianina, Maine Anjou and Simmental using them on our black cows. While traveling I had also seen some excellent Murray Grey bulls in Tasmania that could have also been very useful. The results from using Simmental genetics showed real promise to me. I could see good cattlemen from other breeds such as the Gordons, Drapers and Mitchells also getting involved. Everyone in the Simmental following had come from somewhere else... everybody wanted a change.
My father Marshall and I applied for Simmental importation permits unsuccessfully so started using AI to upgrade the herd. M & J Farms Simmentals was established. Some exciting times followed from the humble beginnings of AI-ing the neighbour’s milk cow in 1972 and getting a heifer calf to sitting as President of the Canadian Simmental Association in 1996. By then Simmentals rivalled any other breed in purebred registrations. Today we maintain a herd of 200 plus registered females and hosting an annual bull sale every February. Rick McIntyre: My beginning was in the early 70’s as a 4-H’er, I guess it was lady luck or my Dad’s eye for cattle that had me leading my first non 4-H calf into the Agribition show ring winning Champion steer, 1972. After that we as a family were hooked. Agribition was the high point of every year. Those early years and the Agribition Simmental sale; my gosh those were crazy times. Our first bred Fullblood heifer to sell sold at one of these sales for over 40k, that was over 13 new ½ ton trucks back then. After that our involvement grew, friends in the business grew and one did their part. I followed in my Dad’s footsteps and had the pleasure of serving on area association boards, the provincial board, and the CSA board, with the honor of my livestock career as serving as a president.
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