From The NYHA President By Jason Pullis
GPS…it’s not just for driving. Okay friends, it’s confession time. I really enjoy writing, but to be honest, coming up with relevant content for my President’s column every month can be quite challenging. When I first started writing these a year ago, I told myself I wasn’t going to take up space talking about the weather or milk prices. Whatever I could say about either subject really wasn’t going to help anyone else, so I just don’t do it. My column last month highlighting some past Master Breeders actually generated several positive comments, so I am going to venture down that road again, sharing memories of a few more I had the opportunity to visit and get to know over the years. As a young adult, reading the Chaseholm Farm ads in the News was always a blast for me. The thing that always got me about the Barry Chase ads were: they were very simple (always a half-page, always with one picture); they promoted a consistent theme from month to month (usually an udder photo with the caption of “The Package”); and they were always in the same spot (PAGE 9) every time. Growing up, I remember pictures of two Chaseholm foundation cows, a mother-daughter pair, Winfarm JM Ivis and Winfarm Chaseholm Tony Ithaca (both bred by the first Master Breeder, Hunt Winans). Both cows were EX 94 and multiple E, and I swear they might have been the two best-uddered cows I had ever seen! I finally got to meet the man behind the ads shortly after joining the News in 2003, when Holly and I stopped in for a visit while heading to a wedding in Poughkeepsie - and the herd did not disappoint. Shortly after that visit, I got a thick envelope in the mail from Barry, with six months of ads enclosed. Not only was he consistent, he was prompt. After leaving Chaseholm that day, we headed to another Eastern New York herd whose owners were making great strides at a quick pace, Dr. Sam and Gail Simon of Plankenhorn Farm. Sam grew up on a Holstein farm and worked his way through medical school while still managing his family’s operation. After retiring from a successful career as an orthopedic surgeon, he purchased a farm and set about breeding an impressive group of cattle. One of his early purchases (with 1986 Master Breeder Ray Vail) was a young Charles daughter, MDCarrollton BC Lizzy. Under Sam’s care, Lizzy would go on to score 3E 94 and have multiple EX daughters. Sam
and Gail would go on to become regular advertisers in the News and be regular supporters of New York Holstein sales as buyers and sellers. For his “third” career, Sam went on to help form and manage Hudson Valley Fresh, a group of dairy producers dedicated to marketing milk from “udderly” healthy cows. The third future Master Breeder we got to meet that day in Eastern New York was Fred Barringer from HillOver Holsteins in Copake. Fred’s daughter, Vanessa, and I attended SUNY-Cobleskill together and I heard a lot of stories about her dad and their herd through the years. As it turned out, the herd was even better than she had described. At the time of our visit, Hill-Over Ticket Dai (EX 95) was the absolute belle of the ball, but the undoubted Queen of the herd was Hill-Over Ticket Beetlejuice (5E 94). Both cows were sired by Millerhurst Valiant Ticket (an EX 92 Valiant son bred by 1994 Master Breeder Harold Miller, another longtime Eastern New York breeder), a bull the Barringers had used with great success. A most remarkable fact about the Hill-Over herd is that out of 1,426 animals that carried their prefix, 166 scored EX - an incredible 11.6 percent! At the time of their final dispersal in 2017, a good family friend of ours bought a nice six-year-old cow that was scored VG 86 and sent her to our farm to care for. On her pedigree in the sale catalog, he wrote “EX 92 cow!” Almost four years later, as the cow is pushing 10, she was just raised to EX 92 during our classification in February. In honor of Mr. Barringer, we call her “Fred.” Maybe a good theme of this month’s column would be “Breeders Helping Breeders.” These breeders I visited with all had tremendous success with their herds. But none of them did it on their own; they all had mentors and supporters. Supporters who were friends, neighbors, cheerleaders and maybe even an early version of a GPS unit … they helped get them where they needed to go! Do you have a GPS breeder in your life? Are you helping plot the road map for another young breeder? Perhaps that is something we can all strive to be to someone else. In reality, most of us are not going to tick the unwritten boxes of being a Master Breeder, but we can sure do our best to help support someone who needs a little extra push or encouragement. If you can be that person, you just might find that doing so will help you arrive at your destination a little easier.
NYN February-March 2021 - 11
