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Jun 28, 2023

Longtime Cattle Feeder looks forward to Operation T

By Laura Bacon/NT Staff Writer While Duane Sloth no longer feeds out cattle, Operation T-Bone is a favorite celebration for him, and he especially likes to go see the fat cattle auction on the first

By Laura Bacon/NT Staff Writer

While Duane Sloth no longer feeds out cattle, Operation T-Bone is a favorite celebration for him, and he especially likes to go see the fat cattle auction on the first Tuesday after the Operation T-Bone festival. This year it will be on Tuesday, Aug. 8.

AUDUBON — While the steak sandwiches and the car or tractor show might be a favorite thing to go to at Operation T-Bone, it all starts out today with a picnic at Albert the Bull Park. Longtime cattleman and former Operation T-Bone board member, Duane Sloth, is looking forward to something coming up on Tuesday, Aug. 8. After many years working with Operation T-Bone, a celebration of the beef industry in Audubon County, the thing that he’s most looking forward to is the Operation T-Bone Fat Cattle Auction, at the Anita Livestock Auction in Anita. Bernard Vais and Jesse Vais, will be auctioneers.

Sloth’s father and grandfather raised beef and beef producers around the Audubon area started shipping to Chicago on train cars about 1952, though Sloth admits he wasn’t involved all the way back then, “I wasn’t born until 1960,” he said.

Sloth has been involved in Operation T-Bone for 28 years — and was “Wagonmaster,” for 14 of those years, “So about half of the time I was in it, I was the president, how ever you want to label that.”

He said he has many good memories from all the celebrations, even from the ones that took place before he was on the T-Bone Committee.

“It’s always been quite a celebration in honor of the beef industry in Audubon County,” he said.

Originally area shippers sent cattle to Chicago, and Sloth said it wasn’t until they started shipping to Omaha that he got involved. “I was always involved when we started shipping to Audubon and to Kimballton, and now Anita.”

The celebration has changed over the years along with the beef industry. Albert the Bull is an example: he’s painted as a hereford, not a familiar color to many today, where most of the beef cattle are black, but hereford cattle were the dominant breed back then, he said, but farmers found that crossing angus in, they could get a slightly larger steer, one that carried more weight — and more beef.

Today, Sloth said he was sort of retired. This is his second year not feeding out cattle, but he still grows grain out on the farm. While he and his wife have two daughters, he didn’t think either of them were interested in going into agriculture, but he hoped, “Maybe someday a grandchild might come along and take over the operation.”

Today’s new farmer might only raise a handful of cattle around the farm.

“Not the numbers like I used to feed,” Sloth said, “I would market 600-700, I did that for about 30 years,” he said.

And while Sloth will enjoy being Grand Marshal of the Operation T-Bone, and he’ll enjoy seeing the festival from ribeye sandwiches to all the different vendors and food stands, he’s most looking forward to going to the fat cattle sale on Tuesday.

“My heart has always been into the fat cattle auction,” he explained. A group of cattle are chosen, and are businesses pay for them. Then feeders feed them out and in the end the profits received were put back into publicizing the beef industry.

Still the town celebration “ranks right up there,” because we have to make the public aware of how important the beef industry is.”

“I have lots of good memories,” he said, both of working in the beef industry and of previous T-Bone celebrations, even from before he was on the committee.

“It’s a great celebration, a great weekend, it fills the town up with people,” he said.

Email Laura Bacon at [email protected]

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