I met Tim Olhde at Dick Judy's Beef Genetics Research, Mankato, KS in 1974. He was working for Dick Judy and they had partnered on some of the Irish Shorthorns that Beef Genetics Research had imported from Ireland. BGR had also imported a bunch of Simmental and Beef Friesen cattle from Ireland. Dick Judy found the Irish cattle in Ireland by accident as he was selecting Simmentals and Beef Friesen cattle and came upon a part of the Deerpark herd on pasture. He told us that they stopped and looked at the cattle and they thought they were Maine Anjou cattle. He decided to find the owners and found the Quane Bros. It was on this meeting that the first Irish cattle came to the US.
I believe it was over some of these irish cattle that Ohlde and Judy had a disagreement and it ended with Olhde leaving BGR. If memory serves me correctly, there was a major dispute over which cattle were in their partnership. I don't know who was right but I remember it was got fairly heated between them. I remember that on our visit to BGR, that Olhde told us he owned some of the cattle, and later that day, Judy told us that he owned the better cattle we were wanting prices on. We talked about this on the way home and we wondered who was the actual owner. I think this is where the disagreement between them actually may have started.
At the same time, we were in the process of importing our first Irish Shorthorn cattle. One of my partners had also found the Irish cattle while visiting Ireland, and he came back with a few hundred slides taken of cattle in the Deerpark and Highfield herds. When he returned home, he called me and we met in a hotel room and viewed his slides on the hotel room wall. That night we decided to import a bull ( Highfiield Irish Mist) and two females Highfield kate 3rd and Highfield Margeret 2nd ( both daughters of Deerpark Leader 18th) . These cattle had no pedigrees or registration at that time, or we probably would have imported many more. At that time, you could buy the Irish cattle for peanuts. We had less than $2000 invested in each animal when they arrived on our farm, after a plane trip,two government quarantines of 60 days, and over 2000 miles of transport across Canada. We paid less than $300 each in Ireland for these cattle. The next bull we imported, IDS Duke of Dublin, cost us $25,000 in Ireland in 1978.
While we were finalizing our deal with the Irish breeders, we found out that some cattle were also being sent to BGR in Kansas. Once they arrived, we drove to Kansas to see these cattle. That was the first time we saw Deerpark Leader 13th ( Dividend) and Deerpark Improver. We all felt that Dividend was the best Shorthorn bull we had ever seen and we tried to buy him. Dick Judy did not want to sell them even though the ASA board had rejected registration of the Irish cattle for the second time. A few days after we got home, I received a letter from Dick Judy in which he offered to sell Dividend and about 800 straws of semen for $25,000 and Improver and about 600 straws of semen for $8000. He said he did not want to sell the bulls seperately. We were only interested in Dividend as Improver was quite crippled at the time. He was one of the straightest legged bull I had ever seen and I really did not think he would ever breed another cow. How wrong I was, as he lived for many more years and bred many cows at Alden farms. Improver did not seem to pass his extreme post leggedness( is that a word???) on to his offspring. After much debate we decided we would not purchase these bulls as we felt that we could go to Ireland and bring in a few more bulls and more females for the same amount of money. Rather than do this, we went to a sale in Kansas City where the Irish government had flown in a plane load of cattle, and they were sold at Curt Rodgers sale facility. We purchased 8 bred females for less than Judy wanted for the two bulls. I am quite sure if we could have split the bulls and only purchased Dividend, we would have bought him, simply because we felt he was the greatest bull we had ever seen. I am sure that we could have made a mountain of money from semen sales if we had been able to do a deal on Dividend.
I would also add that I was super impressed with the Beef Friesens that BGR had imported. They brought at least 50 heifers and a few bulls in from Ireland, and they were by far the best cattle we saw on this trip. I really think the only reason these cattle did not catch on was because of their black and white coloring. They were flat GOOD!