A2o—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 8,1983
Farm Show judge is York dairy farmer
BY JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
DELTA When Ayrshire and
Brown Swiss exhibitors circle the
large arena on Tuesday, they’ll
give their undivided attention to a
judge with his dairy science
doctoratal degree and several
years of college teaching and
judging experience.
But when the last group class is
placed, Jim McCaffree will exit the
show ring to return to his southern
York County farm, in plenty of
time to handle the 9 p.m., third
time-per-day milking of his high
producing registered Holstein
herd.
McCaffree, former dairy
professor and judging team coach
at Delaware Valley College, is now
fulfilling a dream that first took
root as a youngster growing up in
Seattle, Washington. He’s a dairy
farmer.
A love of dairy cows was planted
in one of York County’s newest
dairymen during the childhood and
teenage summers he spent with his
grandparents on their purebred
Ayrshire farm near El Dorado,
Kansas.
“I was ‘into’ cows, but didn't
quite know what to do about it,”
says the lanky dairyman whose
father was a labor economics
professor at the University of
Washington in Seattle. “When I left
my grandparents’ farm in Kansas
at the end of the summer after I
graduated, I went right to
Madison, to the University of
Wisconsin, to enroll in dairy
science studies.”
It was the first of many years
spent on campuses, adding
degrees to his resume. With a
bachelor’s degree certificate in his
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pocket, McCaffree then enrolled at
Cornell in 1960 for graduate
studies.
As part of his thesis for a
master’s degree, McCaffree
delved into dairy nutrition,
working on some of the first
research detailing the use of high
moisture corn in dairy feeding
programs.
A decade after entering New
York’s state university, his studies
interrupted periodically for jobs
and travel, McCaffree earned the
right to add PhD initials behind his
name.
Again, his research work would
add a contribution to the demand
for improved records in the dairy
industry. With many hours spent at
a computer terminal, McCaffree
charted the economics of DHIA
records and their overall benefits
to farm management.
When the job of herdsman for
Delaware Valley’s 60-head
“teaching herd” opened, along
with the opportunity to instruct
classes, McCaffree won the
position and the chance to combine
his ambitions with his degrees.
“But I’m sure I learned more
about cows at DVC than I ever
taught any student,” he is quick to
insist. “I especially liked being
able to teach in the atmosphere of
the bam, with each student given a
cow as his (or her) responsibility
for that entire year. You can
demonstrate things right there in
the bam that could never be taught
as effectively in a classroom.”
At the time McCaffree took the
herdsman-professor position, DVC
had just started an Ayrshire herd.
The school’s Brown Swiss herd was
already an outstanding one, one of
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After teaching and managing herds for several years, Jim and Holly McCaffree’s
owning their own herd and farms near Delta, York County is a realization of a dream
come true. They take special pride in the chance to work at home where they can be with
their two small children. Both two-year-old Jared, and baby Jessica who was napping,
already show interest in the cows.
the top in the nation in the 10-or
-1 ess-head size.
Coaching the dairy judging team
was a third part of the job
classification. At the University of
Wisconsin, McCaffree had studied
judging evaluation and techniques,
and had served as an alternate on
one of the nation’s top collegiate
teams. But he’ll readily admit that
judging is best learned by par
ticipation, and having to defend a
set of placings against a team of
students ready and eager to
dispute their coach’s decision.
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“If I miss anything, it’s working
with the judging team,” he says. In
1975, DVC’s dairy judging team
placed third at national collegiate
competition.
After six years at DVC, Mc-
Caffree left the college to take a
herd manager’s position at Fair
Hill farm on Maryland’s Eastern
Shore, and later became herdsman
for Jay and Sue Howes’ Legacy
Holsteins at Warriors Marie. While
at the Howes’ Centre County farm,
he acquired a few of his own
animals and, about two years ago,
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had the opportunity to rent a
milking operation in Washington
County from a former student.
After about two years of renting
there, McCaffree and wife Holly
decided that they’d like to relocate
back in the southeastern part of the
state, and purchased their present
farm in late 1981. Last April, 45
cows and 30 heifers made the long
truck trip east to their new home
just west of Route 74 near Delta. A
new pipeline, 30-foot bam ex
tension with boxstalls, and manure
(Turn to Page A 36)
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BY DONNA TOMMEL
MILLERSBURG -
walking to his bam, Tut
temoon, Earl Keefer stop
moment to pick a dandelio
A dandelion? Wait a mil
is January, Farm Sho
doesn’t that mean a
anymore?
There’s an old Pern
proverb that says Far
Week means bad weathe
El
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clipping away at this
Farm Show 1983.
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