Houston

Houston

July 28, 2011 0 By Amanda

Earlier this year, Mark and Amanda (and children Jack and Sarah) travelled to the USA – primarily to attend the Houston Livestock Show and promote the 2012 World Brangus Congress to be held in Australia.  It was an amazing trip for many reasons, and Houston (and Texas) showed us some incredible hospitality while we were there.

We donned our green shirts (it helped make it easier to find each other in the HUGE Houston crowds) and ventured forth into the event billed as the World’s Largest Entertainment and Livestock Exhibition.  Apparently 2.26 million people attended this year’s event!  (I think that included us).

The completely indoor venue at Reliant Park was enormous and immaculate – we spent many hours visiting, exploring and spectating in this shed.

There was a great showing of Brangus cattle and we were lucky enough to meet many of those showing animals in the ring – where competition was very hot. Christy Collins of Oklahoma was in charge of selecting the 2011 Champions – not an easy task at all!

We met with IBBA reps including publicity officer Melanie Fuller (pictured left) and IBBA president Marcos Borges who extended some great hospitality to their Aussie visitors.

As the publicity contact for the 2012 World Brangus Congress, Amanda addressed North and South American brangus breeders at the Global Collection Sale and the Fort Bend Global Roundup.

World Brangus Congress 2012 chairman Ian Galloway (of Duarran) also shared some Aussie facts and figures with those attending. (NB As there were many Spanish speaking Brangus breeders there, we required the services of a great interpreter, pictured left.)

We inspected one of the well-known American AI sires – Garrett of Brinks – who was on display at Fort Bend.

Of course, it wasn’t all serious ‘cow business’ and we visited the enormous Rodeo venue…

for a fantastic night of rodeo action …

And the fabulous Tim McGraw!

A huge thanks to all those who helped us throughout our visit – members of the IBBA, hostesses at the International Lounge, and stud and commercial breeders who went out of their way to make us feel right at home on the other side of the world.

We look forward to returning the hospitality when you travel Down Under next year to attend the World Brangus Congress 2012.

Cheers

The Bimbadeen Team