If you’re a Colorado State University Ram, you don’t skip the National Western Stock Show just because it’s below zero degrees outside. Instead, you throw on your green-and-gold beanie and make the trek to Denver to celebrate a partnership that began in 1906 and is still going strong.
“It’s a day for the whole family,” said Allison Trembly, an ’03 CSU grad who helped staff the university’s stock show display on the second floor of the Hall of Education. “The fact that Ram fans are bundling up their newborns and making their way to the stock show grounds shows the power of this tradition.”
This year’s edition of CSU Day at the National Western Stock Show was held on Jan. 13, and as usual, Ram fans showed up in a big way. Volunteers like Trembly handed out bandanas and the ever-popular Ram horns at the CSU booth – both were a common sight at the rodeo and throughout the stock show grounds.
Over at the CSU Spur campus, student volunteers demonstrated a variety of STEM activities, ranging from boat wars in the Water TAP lab to 3D printing to interactive robots.
“It’s so awesome to expose kids to engineering, and even if they choose not to go into the field, they can come here and see what’s possible,” said Gabriela Gritz Moya, a fourth-year engineering student.
CSU Day visitors even got to check out parts of Spur that are usually not open to the general public. That included a second-floor bioengineering lab where CSU graduate students and faculty members explained their work and showed kids how to extract DNA from a strawberry at home.
“It’s a fun challenge to take what you do and try to explain it to a general audience,” said Claire Bailey, a bioengineering Ph.D. student at CSU. “I never got to do this as a kid – I never got to go into a lab – and it’s fun to help show the possibilities of where science can take you.”
Agnes Adamczyk, from Delaware, was visiting her grandkids in Denver when she opted to take them to the CSU Spur campus as a fun indoor activity on a chilly day. She said they loved playing with the sand on the interactive water table, as well as watching horses receive physical therapy.
“They have been engaged in so many different things,” she said. “I’m just so impressed by this facility and all the opportunities to expose visitors to so many different things.”
While many visitors limited their time outdoors on Saturday, members of the historic CSU Seedstock Team remained in their section of the stockyards, where they packed up after another successful year of competition.
Their livestock was given extra bedding to stay warm, and the animals left the grounds and returned back to Fort Collins early Saturday morning.
“Today it’s rough; it’s frozen,” said Justina Slim, a December ’23 graduate who competed with the CSU Seedstock Team for one last time during the 2024 National Western Stock Show.
Sam Cunningham, an associate professor of animal sciences and faculty adviser for the CSU Seedstock Team, added: “This is the coldest I’ve ever experienced the stock show in my five years of doing this.”
But she was quick to add that she’s been going to the National Western Stock Show for a better part of her life, and she has lots of memories of the cold. That’s just January in Denver. Her real takeaway from this year?
“It was a good trip – the students worked hard, and once again, it was just a cumulation of all their great work,” she said. “We’re fortunate to have such great support from this community and such a great team.”
