Local bull takes honors at KY Farm Bureau Beef Expo

by MATT HUGHES

J-E Editor

Most people in Webster County known Jeff Pettit as Chairman of the Webster County School Board, but there is a lot more to Pettit than a lot of people know. He is the CEO of Noash Construction, Inc. (NCI), a wireless communication service, maintenance and construction company he founded in 1998. Pettit and his wife, Michelle, also operate Diamond P Cattle Company,  which specializes in purebred Red Angus seed stock and commercial Red Angus replacement females. Pettit also recently completed a term as Chairman of the Webster County Cattlemens’ Association.

During the most recent snowstorm, Pettit was in Louisville, Kentucky for the 29th Annual Kentucky Farm Bureau Beef Expo, where cattle buyers spent $1.39 million, shattering the Expo’s previous sales record ($1.14 million).

Consignors from 18 states brought cattle to the 2015 Beef Expo.

“It means a lot that so many people were willing to endure tremendous amounts of snow and record cold to buy and show at the Beef Expo,” Agricultural Commissioner James Comer said. “This has become one of the premier beef cattle events in the country.”

DPC Duke 246B, one of Pettit’s Red Angus bulls, was selected as the Reserve Champion Bull of the cattle show. This is the second year Diamond P has won that award. At the 2014 Expo DPC Big Hoss A003 was named Reserve Champion.

Diamond P has taken five additional awards during cattle shows at the Kentucky State Fair since 2012 and one at the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo.

“When we started building “our” herd of cattle we had settled on the Red Angus breed,” Pettit wrote on the Diamond P website. “These cattle, without question, have the best dispositions of any breed of cattle I have ever been associated with. Not only that, their mothering instincts are unparalleled and they produce light birth weight calves that have super growth and carcass characteristics packaged in a moderate easy finishing frame.”

Pettit and his wife both come from cattle breeding families, and they have involved their children in the business as well.

“With the birth of our granddaughter in 2013, this will begin the 3rd generation of our family to have a hand in developing what we feel will be one of the best seed stock operations in the Bluegrass State,” Pettit wrote.