justintime
Well-known member
This morning, a long time friend and former partner of mine passed away at the age of 53 after a 15 month battle with cancer. This was Craig Andrew, of Paragon Land and Cattle, Qu"Appelle, SK. Many of you may not have known Craig, but I know there are some who visit SP on a regular basis who did, so I thought I would pass on this bit of bad news. Craig travelled extensively throughout many parts of the US and Canada attending cattle events,so he did know lots of people.
Craig was absolutely convinced that he was going to beat his disease, and was rebuilding his herd after a few years of being in some other business ventures. He bought several more females at several sales this fall, with the last couple purchased in the Huberdale sale last week. Two days before he died, he was telling a friend of mine, that he was planning to go to Denver in January.
Craig was one of my partners when we decided to form the Irish Drovers. This was a partnership we formed when we decided to import Irish Shorthorns into Canada. We were the first to import these cattle from Ireland to Canada, and the second ones in North America to do so, following Dick Judy's import at Beef Genetics Research, Inc at Mankato, KS. It was Craig who phoned me one morning , from Ireland, and he told me the he had just seen the best Shorthorn bull he had ever seen. I told him that he should get a price and see if we could afford to buy him. He told me that there was a problem in that the bull was already sold to a breeder in Texas. This bull was IDS Duke of Dublin. I took the owner's name from Craig, and told him to call me back in a few hours. I made a few calls to people I knew in the US, and eventually found someone who knew this man in Texas, and also was able to give me a phone number. I immediately phoned this man and asked him if he would be interested in selling the bull to us, either in part or a piece of him.He started out by saying that he wanted $50,000 for full interest and possession. I negotiated with him for quite awhile and got him to come down to $25,000 for full possession and 1/2 the semen rights. After a hour on the phone, I had made a deal with this man that gave us this, but I still did not want to fork out this amount of cash.The deal I was able to get, involved trading a set of cows that we had sold to Don Cagwin for the bull. After making this deal, I then had to call Cagwin and convince him to sell the cows back to us for what we he had paid for them. Since the cows had not been sent to Cagwin's yet, we just rerouted the truck and had them delivered to Texas instead of Illinois. When Craig phoned me back about 4 hours later, I informed him that we now owned the Duke, and told him to tell the Irish breeder who had him to immediately start the tests to get him to Canada. A few months later, Duke arroived at our farm. Getting him to Canada turned out to be much easier than we expected. We were able to contact a man in New York, who had a 747 jet and once a month he made a trip around the world transporting only livestock. The load to Canada included several race horses that were valued in the Millions, as well as some British beef cattle, including the great Limousin bull Harvest Olympus, who spent one night in our barn.
I would have no idea how many miles I have travelled with Craig, but it would be in the hundreds of thousands, rather than thousands. He had a great eye for good cattle, and he was passionate about this business. He will be missed.
Craig was absolutely convinced that he was going to beat his disease, and was rebuilding his herd after a few years of being in some other business ventures. He bought several more females at several sales this fall, with the last couple purchased in the Huberdale sale last week. Two days before he died, he was telling a friend of mine, that he was planning to go to Denver in January.
Craig was one of my partners when we decided to form the Irish Drovers. This was a partnership we formed when we decided to import Irish Shorthorns into Canada. We were the first to import these cattle from Ireland to Canada, and the second ones in North America to do so, following Dick Judy's import at Beef Genetics Research, Inc at Mankato, KS. It was Craig who phoned me one morning , from Ireland, and he told me the he had just seen the best Shorthorn bull he had ever seen. I told him that he should get a price and see if we could afford to buy him. He told me that there was a problem in that the bull was already sold to a breeder in Texas. This bull was IDS Duke of Dublin. I took the owner's name from Craig, and told him to call me back in a few hours. I made a few calls to people I knew in the US, and eventually found someone who knew this man in Texas, and also was able to give me a phone number. I immediately phoned this man and asked him if he would be interested in selling the bull to us, either in part or a piece of him.He started out by saying that he wanted $50,000 for full interest and possession. I negotiated with him for quite awhile and got him to come down to $25,000 for full possession and 1/2 the semen rights. After a hour on the phone, I had made a deal with this man that gave us this, but I still did not want to fork out this amount of cash.The deal I was able to get, involved trading a set of cows that we had sold to Don Cagwin for the bull. After making this deal, I then had to call Cagwin and convince him to sell the cows back to us for what we he had paid for them. Since the cows had not been sent to Cagwin's yet, we just rerouted the truck and had them delivered to Texas instead of Illinois. When Craig phoned me back about 4 hours later, I informed him that we now owned the Duke, and told him to tell the Irish breeder who had him to immediately start the tests to get him to Canada. A few months later, Duke arroived at our farm. Getting him to Canada turned out to be much easier than we expected. We were able to contact a man in New York, who had a 747 jet and once a month he made a trip around the world transporting only livestock. The load to Canada included several race horses that were valued in the Millions, as well as some British beef cattle, including the great Limousin bull Harvest Olympus, who spent one night in our barn.
I would have no idea how many miles I have travelled with Craig, but it would be in the hundreds of thousands, rather than thousands. He had a great eye for good cattle, and he was passionate about this business. He will be missed.
