A national champion in a different kind of way. Now when you hear about national champions you probably think of sports, but I am talking about a sheep showman who works just as hard as athletes who are national champions, and her name is Kinsey Mennen. How could a sheep showman be a national champion, you may ask? Athletes spend days in and out of the gym trying to better themselves. Livestock showmen do the same. They spend hours upon hours in the barn working their livestock, exercising them, feeding them, and more behind-the-scenes work. They then spend their summers going to shows and getting experience, just like athletes join programs in the off-season to become successful during their season. Showmen work hard year-round to get ready for open shows, their county fair, and state fair, and then the final show of the season, NAILE(North American International Livestock Exposition). This is the National Show showmen work so hard to have small successes at. An example of this would be being placed on the top end of your class. Winning your breed championship could be considered impossible for some. To help you understand this achievement this is equivalent to winning a state championship multiple times in a sport.

Kinsey Mennen, a national champion said, “I’m still in shock, this is something my family and I have always worked for, it just feels unreal to have accomplished this.” Mennen also added, “This has been a goal for my family for years, and getting to this point is amazing.” Kinsey was also asked if being able to achieve something like this was hard, and her response was, “My family has been showing for over fourteen years, and I personally have been showing sheep since I was three or four years old. We had many sheep each year, and we are lucky to get to this point, but many families have been doing it for way longer than us and haven’t been able to achieve this despite their experience and hard work.”
Mr. Plank, a livestock jock (livestock judge, breeder, and fitter) gave his thoughts on Kinsey’s successes at NAILE, his response was, “It’s really a huge feat to do well at NAILE, and something a lot of livestock showmen dream about. People spend their whole lives trying to breed sheep to have success at NAILE and it’s one of the hardest shows to do well at.”

Matt Minnick, another NAILE showman, was asked how much time is spent working sheep, and how much work goes into it, his response was, “ Showing sheep is complicated, people don’t realize the amount of time and work you have to put in on a daily basis if you want to show at a successful level.”