Penngrove cow named supreme junior champion at World Dairy Expo

The highlight came when the spotlight flipped on and Penngrove’s Christian Cunningham led the new champion into an arena surrounded with throngs of admirers.

Beside the Petaluma High grad was Camille, a 3-year-old beauty in the world of registered Holsteins and the newly crowned supreme champion of the Junior Show at the 2016 World Dairy Expo held earlier this month in Madison, Wisconsin. The moment, said Cunningham, was “a pretty big deal” with “all attention on you” as he stood in an arena about the size of San Francisco’s Cow Palace.

The award given Oct. 8 makes Camille one of the top dairy cows in the United States and Canada. The expo typically attracts more than 70,000 attendees from over 90 countries.

Along with the junior category, the expo has an open competition, won this year by a Jersey cow from Kaukauna, Wisconsin.

It wasn’t the first victory for Camille, whose formal name is Silvermaple Windham Camille-ET. She previously was named intermediate champion female of the Junior Show at the World Dairy Expo in 2015 and in 2014 she was junior champion at the California State Fair Holstein Show.

“She’s done pretty good for us,” said Cunningham.

The young man exhibits Camille in partnership with Miles Price, a young teen from Illinois and the son of a family friend.

Cunningham, the son of John and Lynn Cunningham, is a Santa Rosa Junior College student with plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in agriculture business management.

He said eventually he may join the family business, R.O. Shelling Grain & Feed in Petaluma. Camille is one of about 60 head of calves, heifers and cows on the family farm, which Cunningham described as “kind of an overgrown 4-H project.”

Lynn Cunningham explained that her older son, Rocco, and Christian began raising the cows with their dad’s help and the support of the Penngrove 4-H club. Christian Cunningham has been showing cows for almost a decade, but this win is definitely one to remember.

Thinking back on the competition, he said, “Those are like all the best cows in the world showing there.”

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 707-521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @rdigit