A striking jet-black 17-month old European cross steer named "Lunchbox" was the belle of the ball in Cowtown this weekend. Tipping the scales at 1,329-pounds, the hunk was crowned Grand Champion of the Fort Worth Stock Show, and was later auctioned off for $205,000, courtesy of the Happy Davis Foundation, a Fort Worth-based charity that does these sorts of things regularly.
Lunchbox was raised and shown by Stock Martin, a skinny 12-year-old from Hereford, who is a member of the Oldham County 4-H Club. Martin has been showing livestock since he was 5 and is a regular winner on the circuit; this isn't even the first time, nor probably the last, he's pulled in six-digits for a steer. And, for you city-folk with your jaws on the floor right now, it's not Monopoly money they're kicking around at the stockyards: It's real and the kids keep it all.
In addition to his superior bovine care, Martin certainly deserves a tip o' the hat for humor on the plains. Naming his steer Lunchbox was certainly well-played.
Lunchbox will be at the Fort Worth Zoo through June of this year. Then, who knows...
