The Western Canadian Agribition is over for another year, with several local producers making their mark on the agriculture showcase that has become internationally recognized as one of the premiere events in the industry.

The 30-year tradition of Agribition has grown to become one of the world's major beef exhibitions, with 15 purebred beef breeds and six Canadian national shows. Beef entries were up by 400 head over 1999.

But Agribition is much more than beef - in total there were 4,000 head of livestock at the event, ranging from the more traditional horses, goats and sheep to specialty livestock like bison and llamas.

A grain and forage show, trade show and auction, rodeo, outstanding young farmer awards, meat product competitions, farm yard inventions and much more were showcased at Agribition, which ran from Nov. 19-26 at Regina Exhibition Park.

Sedley producer Levi Jackson had a front row seat for one of the biggest and most popular spectator events at Agribition, as the chairman of the Beef Supreme Challenge.

The Challenge is only in its second year at Agribition, but the Sunday afternoon spectacle drew a packed house to the main stadium.

There were 118 prime, purebred cattle competing in this elite international championship from all over North America.

In the competition, champion bulls and females from all breeds that were awarded grand champion prizes at previous events come to compete in a best-of-the-best contest. The widely varying breeds come to Agribition from competitions held all over North America, including Kansas City, Billings, Calgary, Prince Albert, Brandon, etc.

The 52 bulls were paraded in the ring in front of five judges, who ranked them from 1-15. Then the 66 females were brought into the ring, judged and ranked similarly. After the judging all the bulls and females were brought together into the ring.

"To see all those cattle in the ring, there's no other way to describe it than incredible - to have so many champions from so many breeds at the same time," said Jackson.

The Supreme Champion female was a Black Angus cow-calf pair from Calgary. The Supreme Champion bull was a Charolais yearling from Maymont, Sask.

Jackson said a lot of preparation and last minute scrambling to get entries in was required to plan the huge event, but he was happy with the result.

"I don't take any more credit than anyone else involved," he said.

Jackson can take credit, however, for his own showing at Agribition. The Jackson Cattle Co. won several awards for Red Angus cattle, including Premiere Breeder for the fifth year in a row, and five other grand or reserve champion awards for their females and calves.

"We had a very good show," Jackson said.

The local area was well represented in the Red Angus category, as Ceylon producer Shane Kaufmann also took home the awards for Bull Reserve Junior Calf Champion and Bull Reserve Senior Champion, and the Soo Line Cattle Co. out of Midale won honours for Female Reserve Junior Calf Champion.

The results from each of the numerous cattle breeds have not been posted in their entirety on the Agribition web site yet, but placings already posted shows Beck Farms from Lang, Carla Merit of Radville and Campbell's Charolais from Griffin had a good showing in the Charolais category; J.S. and J.W. Morrice of Weyburn, Tom Grieve of Fillmore and the Soo Line Cattle Co. of Midale placed well in the Beef Heifer category; and Kevin McKague of Ogema took the Reserve Grand Champion honours for his pen of Limousin heifers in the Pen-Arama competition.

At the 2000 Grain and Forage competition, in its 20th year at Agribition, Lyle and K.C. Garratt of Milestone also made their mark, winning Champion Field Peas and taking second place in the overall pulse category. The junior seed show class winner in this event was Evan Rennick of Milestone, while Trevor Rennick of Milestone was the grand champion in the junior pulse category.

Other competitors of note were Caroline McGillivray of Weyburn who took third in the wall hanging competition, Key West Katahdin of Ogema and Murray and Betty Martin of Stoughton who placed well in the Katahdin Sheep Show, and Brian Schwindt of Ogema and Earl Johnson of Fillmore who took part in the heavy horse pull.

Weyburn's Russell Roome, well known in the area for his excellent sheep dogs, entered two of his dogs, Jen and Kim, in the sheep herding contest on Nov. 22 and 23.

The dogs were required to herd the sheep in a figure eight pattern around a series of barrels, go through a chute and herd the sheep into a pen, all in the fastest time possible.

Jen came in second on the second day with a time of 1:34 minutes, while Kim was three seconds slower at 1:37 and tied for third place.

Although the combined results from each dog weren't enough to get either in the final competition of the top five, they still had a good showing out of 50 dogs from three provinces and three U.S. states.

Roome points out that the unique thing about Jen is she was adopted from the Weyburn Humane Society, and has become an extremely valuable worker and friend.

The bison show and sale was another popular event at Agribition, attended by Weyburn producer Bernie Kot who has a 48-head herd north of the city.

The bison sale was held Nov. 21 and the conference for the Saskatchewan Bison Association was held Nov. 18-20. Three new board members were elected, including Kot, who will now take on the duties of a director.

"As a director we have to represent producers at the association table and promote bison, bison meat and byproducts," Kot said.

He noted at the eighth annual show and sale, the grand champion bull calf sold for $17,500, the female two-year old bred champion sold for $9,000, and the champion two-year old went for $5,100.

Taking in the whole Agribition experience was Sharla Clay of Weyburn, who was one of 24 Grade 11 and 12 students from across the Prairies attending a five-day Adventures in Agriculture program at the event.

The program offered students the opportunity to participate in tours, presentations and network with agribusiness industry leaders. The aim of the program is to broaden young people's understanding and knowledge of the agriculture sector, and the challenge farmers face providing food to the world.

Sharla earned the right to go on the Rotary-sponsored trip to Agribition because of her desire to learn more about the agriculture industry and its career opportunities. Her application was selected among dozens of submissions from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.