By Alex McCuaig

Beef Pen

2019 Beef Pen Show one of the biggest for event

Dec 22, 2019 | 3:19 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – The holiday spirit was definitely in the air during the Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede’s 2019 Beef Pen Show over the weekend as the ranching community gathered for what has become a successful local tradition leading into Christmas week.

And this year’s event was one of the largest in the event’s history.

“This is the second biggest show we’ve had,” said Greg Frey, Beef Pen Show committee chair. “I believe there are 490 cows and heifers in the barn. It’s been really good, lots of people around and a full house.”

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The event at the Cypress Centre brings in commercial and purebreds cows with 4H also participating.

And while some participants raised concerns going into the new year about soil moisture on the southeastern Alberta rangeland, Frey said things were pretty steady in the industry right now.

“It brings the ranchers in,” said Frey of the Beef Pen Show and its effect on the Medicine Hat economy, “and it shows you what you got at home as commercials or the purebred guys.”

The ranching industry continues to be an economic driver for the region, said Frey, as it has been for well over a century.