A Greene County native will have the opportunity to be on the national stage this Saturday doing what he loves to do.

Travis Lautner is a 2003 Jefferson-Scranton High School graduate and will be judging the junior show for miniature Hereford cattle at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado on Saturday. From his early years of being a 4-H’er, Lautner says his interest in judging livestock started with a fitting contest at the Greene County Fair. Then once he learned about visual appraisal of an animal, that drew his interest in wanting to judge livestock.

“You do your best to determine value between the animals. And that really, once I saw kind of the importance of that of the improvements that you can make to your herd just by knowing which qualities are more valuable than others I think that’s probably more helpful.”

Since then, Lautner has over 25 years of experience in grooming and fitting, as well as 15 years of livestock judging experience. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that the show he is going to judge on Saturday will include between 150 and 200 entries, with some exhibitors as young as three years old. Being a professor and the agribusiness co-chair at Des Moines Area Community College, he tells people to find the “why” in what they are doing and for him it is getting more people interested in agriculture and livestock, that will help bring that component back which he believes has been eliminated from the ag-economy equation.

“If we can bring livestock back in, I see that as a way to create more jobs, and more opportunities, and more learning environments for our young people. And hopefully, maybe try and invigorate some of these local economies as well.”

Travis thanks his parents, Wayne and Vicky, for their encouragement and pushing him to learn how to be better at every show, along with other family members that attended livestock shows. He also manages the DMACC Dallas County Farm with 325 acres of cropland, a cow-calf and farrow-to-finish operation. Travis and his wife Megan live on an acreage near Indianola with their three kids.