The Ohio State University Dairy Judging Teams

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The Ohio State University Dairy Judging Teams

This page will serve to inform and follow the journeys of our dairy judging teams and the individual members who commit their time and talents.

09/03/2026

If there ever has been a “judge” of all species, it might well have been Ted Renner! After being with friends this past week-end at a cow sale and keeping his keen eye at work, Ted passed away. Attached are some photos of his 50 year celebration of being a member of The Ohio State Dairy judging team! Grand memories with friends! More details will follow.

08/06/2026

We are really into the second week in the parlor. So let me introduce your Week 2 manager, Emma Talbott!
She comes our way because of her involvement and employment at our new dairy on campus. Her background may not include dairy experiences, but she has become passionate about our industry. She is a Knox county native (with a 4-H/FFA background) who made her way to OSU by way of ATI . She will graduate this December with Animal Sciences degree. As a student manager at the MALC dairy and her role this week, I really believe we are going to see more of Emma in our industry. Welcome her as you make your way in and out of the parlor.

08/02/2026

The “support team” in the parlor is so very important. At 4:30 am and every morning, Zoe Brant rises to the occasion! As an OSU student completing her degree in December, Zoe is a Bioscience major whose major focus has been the equine program! She volunteered all during the horse show and is back with us and every exhibitor is teaching her about dairy by example by their conversations. However, she loves showing horses and works for S. Bradley Show Horses. Zoe understands the passion it takes. Thank you all for enriching her learning and thank you Zoe for your loyalty these days of the fair!

07/30/2026

For more than 40 years plus, the OSU Dairy Judging teams have had a contract with the Ohio State Fair to manage the milking parlor. This year, we would like to introduce our
Week 1 manager.

Jack Hastings is an Ag Systems Management major going into his third year. He grew upon a 600 cow dairy in Geauga county. Currently he is the public relations officer for Buckeye Dairy Club. This summer he has interned at Ge**er Feed. So if you prefer a smiling face when you make your way to the parlor, we guarantee you will be greeted by Jack.

Look for him on the tanbark with notes in hand this fall!

06/07/2026

Well this write up has been a long time coming, but the content is worthy to be shared.
As you will recall, the Buckeye Dairy Club banquet annually honors the anniversary teams. This time I am honoring the 10 year team which included Dr. Colton Harstine, Corey and Cody Jodrey, and Laura Bond. Each had already been an Ohio team member in the National 4-H Dairy Judging Contest. It was a slightly different year for me and Dr. Specht took the team to the Eastern States competition. For the trip to Madison, Julie Delavergne traveled as an assistant coach. The team was one that supported each other in many and unique ways. The All American contest brought about some lessons before the contest at Madison. The results of World Dairy Expo included Cody earning the AA status and Colton and Laura were in the top 5 for one of the breeds. As a team, they were 4th in Swiss. At the North American, Cody was true to his roots being High Individual in the Ayrshire breed while the team placed 2nd and was also 4th in the Swiss.
Laura is now a mother of two and worked in clinical research for 5 years. She and her husband reside in Portage county on a small farm with some Longhorns. Laura is a 4-H volunteer with the Trumbull County teams and uses her team experiences to mentor the future. Cody resides in Wi******er with his wife Audrey and their baby daughter. He is still at the family farm, Emerald Farms Ayrshires, and he and his brother still raise show pigs. Cody is a meat inspector for the state of Ohio. Corey has maintained these similar roots with his brother and has yet to marry, but works for Sullivan Supply and is doing some judging around Ohio. Colton went onto vet school and became Dr. Harstine in a small animal practice and now is into an adventure with a large chicken and egg operation. He met his wife through her association with Waterman as an employee and she also took the dairy judging class. They have one daughter.
My best memories of this team was their exceptional compassion and “BonBon” and “Okeedokee” that became familiar terms. Plus Laura left me with a memorable response to contest results.
Attending the banquet were Corey and
Cody and Laura!

04/27/2026

Let’s go back to the anniversary teams and spotlight the ones who celebrated 25 years since judging at Ohio State. Another team that has moved forward in a variety of directions was Jenny Indoe Thomas, Greg Borchers, Brandon Lawwill, and Keith Didonato.

With equal amounts of passion and respect for their coach, Dr. Spike, they are convinced he had patience with all of them.
This team had their best results at Eastern States placing 1st. At PA, they 5th and then 10th at Madison and Brandon earned AllAmerican status.

As far as memories, they do recall the Ohio State Fair lasting nearly 3 weeks and they managed the parlor, the MilkaCow station , AND a display herd with 20 head. Jenny states that you had to really WANT to judge. However, Pete reminded them about the trips that were in the future!

Their placings in contests did not decide their journeys in life.
Greg (who was able to attend) with his wife Penny are parents of Austin and Jacob. Austin was on an OSU 4th place team at Madison and Jacob judged 4-H and is working on his degree here on campus. Greg went on to be the 7th generation dairy farmer with the farm prefix of Sugar Knoll. Greg had many memories. Some included a van accident and practical jokes with each other and Pete. That is possibly why they recall Pete’s patience.

Brandon was able to attend for a short while and he too took a very dairy path including time spent as a herdsman at ATI and
currently is the Project Manager for WG Dairy Supply. He is engaged and will be married in June. Brandon recalls the moment he gave his final set of reasons to John Ayars.

Jenny is married to Nathan and they are the dynasty of Triple T as major influencers with Holstein and Jersey breeds. Jenny has graced the tan bark at many shows in many countries. Sports also dominate their time with all 3 of their children on the court, the football field, and on the tanbark. Their oldest recently competed in the FFA state dairy judging finals on campus.

Keith left his roots in the dairy industry, but went onto become a development officer here at Ohio State and now is Vice President of Advancement at Kenyon College. He has plenty of positive memories of skills developed when judging that are a part of his daily routine in these endeavors. He and his wife Diane are the parents of two boys who play multiple sports.

04/25/2026

Today was the Ohio FFA Dairy Judging finals. It was also the very first event to take place in the new and completed arena at the MALC (Multispecies Animal Livestock Complex). We all made history as we inaugurated the area with students and cows. Classes were led and cows were polished and groomed. Many thanks to John Lemmerman for assuming the leadership role along with Mackenzie Abbati, Dairy Operations Manager, staff, and all the Buckeye Dairy Club members who assisted with training the cows to lead better! Also many of our current and former judging team members were there to manage the reasons process. Thank you FFA for this opportunity!

04/20/2026

On Friday, April 17 at the Buckeye Dairy Club banquet, we took time to recognize our 50,25, and 10 year anniversary teams for dairy judging. Each group represented three different era of coaches.
The 50 year team consisted of Blaine Crosser, Lee Kohler, Larry Schirm, and Tony Moreno, and Doug McKay (deceased and remembered )They are proof of how a team’s friendship can and will last a lifetime.
Harold Kaeser was the legendary coach often referred to as the “Dean” of dairy judging. His assistant coach was Dave Galton who was on campus working on his Masters degree and went on to be the famed and winning coach at Cornell.

Here are some unique points about this high profile team.
*Tony Moreno was the first international student to judge for Ohio State. The story of how Coach Kaeser brought he and his brother Juan to the states is very interesting.
*This team came from Guernsey and Jersey backgrounds only!
*On this team’s 25th anniversary, Blaine, Larry, and Lee were each asked and did judge a National Guernsey show.
*Larry has been an official and lead judge at the National Intercollegiate contest for 30 years.

For an entire script of their stories and performance, email me.

04/15/2026

It is with sadness that we are posting again to provide information on the death of a former OSU dairy judging alum. Bill was a cowman in the business of breeding and developing Jerseys with his brother and partners. However he was also a respected educator and also the founder of his famed barbecue sauce. Following is a link to his obituary and photo (far right)of he and his team mates at the 50 year celebration of their team at a Buckeye Dairy Club banquet in 2016.

https://www.spencefuneralhome.com/obituaries/William-H-Diley-Jr?obId=48031956

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2029 Fyffe Road
Columbus, OH
43210

Website

https://ansci.osu.edu/

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