Colton Hamilton dreams of becoming an investment banker but plans never to abandon the ranch.
“I’m always going to keep the cows. I really enjoy working with them,” he said.
The 18-year-old University of Calgary economics student won this year’s grand champion Angus female at the Calgary Stampede. Named Belvin Duchess 87’99, the cow has had four calves that have earned the Innisfail youth enough money to pay his university tuition.
“I wanted to show her because she never misses,” he said. His next plan is to have this cow flushed and sell the embryos.
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He has shown at Calgary, Edmonton Farmfair, Canadian Western Agribition in Regina and youth competitions in Bashaw, Alta., sometimes against his own family members, which include his uncle Rob Hamilton and parents, Gavin and Mabel Hamilton, who are well-known in cattle show circles.
The Calgary win made him eligible for the Supreme show, competing against experienced purebred cattle producers in 11 other breeds. Although beaten by a Simmental entry, Hamilton went into the show feeling confident.
“The judge liked her calf and she is long bodied with a nice udder,” he said.
Show time sometimes means lost school time. In his last year of high school, he missed 15 days because of his cattle business, but once he got into university, he decided to stay in school.
Hamilton got his first cow, Casa Mountain Georgina 2Y, when he was five and started his show career at age nine through the Bashaw youth programs.
Hamilton uses the Belvin Angus name but has his own tattoo, CGH, for his herd of 15.
“Most of them have been shown at one time or another.”
Hamilton is on the board of directors for the Alberta Junior Angus Show and hopes to maintain his connections to the family farm after he graduates.
“It would be nice to farm if you didn’t have to worry about drought and other things,” he said.
The other things include the deepening worry created since bovine spongiform encephalopathy halted international trade and ravaged the Canadian beef business. This year’s Angus show was down by half as breeders are still recovering from two years of record drought and now a disease problem.
“People are unsure of what is going to happen.”
