Rachel Serrell
Staff Writer
Caleb Boardman is the University of Wyoming’s livestock judging coach and an assistant lecturer in the Department of Animal Science.
Boardman grew up in Frannie, Wyoming on a family owned cow/calf operation. Growing up, he was involved in showing and livestock judging.
“Ag[riculture] was our life. When we weren’t working cows, we were showing, and when we weren’t doing either of those, we were judging,” said Boardman in The Show with Cannon Brown, a podcast.
Boardman and his brother, Jared, were especially close growing up. They owned a small sheep flock of about 60-70 black faced ewes, that they competitively showed and sold in their region.
“We kind of did everything together, and he was a great older brother,”Boardman said in the podcast. “A lot of siblings that close [in age] might butt heads, but he was always nice to little brother and took care of me, so we were pretty good friends all the time.”
Boardman’s passion for livestock judging started at a very young age. His father, Russ, was a collegiate livestock judging coach at Northwest College in Powell for 18 years. Boardman said he recalls spending lots of time in the stands at livestock shows with his brother, watching his dad judge and being immersed in the livestock.
He continued to pursue his passion in livestock judging in college. Boardman received scholarships for judging and attended Coffeyville Community College in Coffeyville, Kansas. He was later recruited and joined the livestock judging team at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. There, he earned a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness and his master’s degree in animal science with a ruminant nutrition emphasis. For the two years while earning his master’s, Boardman had the opportunity to be the assistant coach for Texas A&M’s livestock judging team.
Boardman returned to Wyoming in May of 2015 to be the livestock judging coach for UW. Boardman said he hopes as Wyoming becomes more competitive, high school judgers will want to choose to stay in Wyoming to judge for their home state.
Most would argue that Boardman has done exactly that. The livestock judging teams in the last two years have done better than any other UW livestock judging team has done in the past. This year’s team competed in six contests in the spring and placed in the top four overall at each of them. The team rounded out a successful year in Louisville, Kentucky this past week by placing seventh overall out of 30 collegiate teams. UW was one of two universities (the other being Oklahoma State University) to have an individual in the top 10 at every contest throughout the year.
“I tell most people that they have to use livestock judging as a stepping stone to their future careers,” said Boardman. “I tell them most people have to grow up and you can’t make livestock judging a career, there’s only a few of us that are lucky to do that, and I guess I’m one of those.”
Boardman extended his passion for livestock judging to those younger than a collegiate level. He started the 307 Judging Series three years ago, to provide an opportunity for 4-H students to be able to participate in a few more contests throughout the year. An All-State team is then created from the top five senior members, that get the opportunity to travel and compete at the Flints Hills Classic and Aksarben livestock judging contests. The team this year placed fifth and ninth overall at the contests respectively, and consisted of Saige Ward (Laramie), Alexis Lake (Laramie), Liz Voss (Worland), Logan Mehling (Powell) and Kolton Lake (Laramie).
Boardman is still involved with his family ranch in Frannie where they run approximately 700 cows together, and when he is not on the road coaching UW’s team, he spends his time his wife, Kylie, and their son, Cash.
