For more than two decades, Clay Weber has been an integral part of LBCC’s agricultural science program. Originally from central California, Weber worked hard and turned his passion for raising livestock — a favorite family pastime — into a successful career. Through his work in the program and his coaching of the livestock judging team, he has played a key role in shaping the future of the agricultural industry in Oregon and beyond.
How long have you worked at LB?
I started in the fall of 2001, which makes this my 23rd year. I was hired as an instructor to teach mostly animal science classes and coach the livestock judging team.
In the time you’ve been here, how has your job changed?
My job hasn’t changed much, but time has passed. I no longer actively coach the livestock judging team, although I still help with the program. I’ve had the opportunity to be the department chair for agricultural science for seven or eight years, and most recently, I took over the College Now program.
What classes do you teach?
I teach feeds and feed processing, marketing in agriculture, applied animal nutrition, sheep and swine production, and forage crops.
Do you teach just in classrooms, or do you have a barn?
Right now, we teach mostly in classrooms, but there is a project in the works on Looney Lane for a more diversified school farm. In the meantime, whenever we have a hands-on lab, we work with community partners. We make calls and visit local farms and ranches for hands-on work. This has, perhaps to our detriment, lessened the urgency of needing our own farm, but we are the only school I know of with an animal science component that doesn’t have a diversified school farm for lab components and exercises.
We are also able to utilize resources at Oregon State University, but the challenge is that it requires a lot of planning. We have to figure out transportation and build the transportation time into our class time.
Do we have enough students to justify a school farm?
Yes, absolutely. Eventually, we’ll move the existing horse facility out to Looney Lane as well. It will be a horse and livestock facility. Once people realize we have that facility, recruiting students will become much easier, and our enrollment will skyrocket.
How is the new facility build being funded?
It’s being funded through an $8 million grant that we received from the state, plus another $8 million from a bond measure.
Are there other community college animal science programs nearby that students could enroll in?
As far as animal science, we’re the only game in town. The next closest schools are Blue Mountain in Pendleton and Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario. OSU has the programs and facilities, so when students visit there and then see we just have classrooms, it could discourage them from enrolling here and send them straight to OSU instead. We would like to have them attend LB for two years and then send them to OSU.
What degrees do you currently offer?
We offer both transfer and technical degrees. Transfer degrees include: Animal science, agricultural business management, agricultural science, and equine Science. technical degrees include: animal technology, and animal tech: horse management.
What we hope is that with the new facility, we could potentially develop a veterinary technician program, and it will give us the flexibility to offer a traditional crop science or crop production degree as well.
What did you do before you taught?
I was a livestock feed sales representative for Associated Feed out of Turlock, California.
Are you from Turlock?
I’m from Madera, California. After graduating from Madera High, I went to Modesto Junior College and earned my Bachelor of Science in Animal Science from Oklahoma State University. I completed my master’s in general agriculture from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
What did you initially want to do?
I really didn’t know. I knew I liked livestock, and I’d always raised livestock. My family was more into crop production, and livestock was a hobby, but there wasn’t a livelihood in livestock to return home to, so I didn’t have a clear path. When I was a grad student, I had the opportunity to teach classes, and I learned that I enjoyed the student interaction and engagement, which was positive for me. I stepped away from academics to be a sales rep, and I’m glad I did, because it gave me a solid foundation for many of the things I teach, like my nutrition classes.
Do you have a farm?
Yes, we have 23 acres between Shedd and Brownsville. We raise sheep, and I own cows, but they’re not on my property. We’ve always run sheep on our own property, and we make a once-a-year hay crop in the summer. I also sell show lambs to 4-H and FFA exhibitors.
Who is “we”?
“We” is myself, my wife, Dena, and our two sons. Cole, my oldest, just graduated from Pacific University in Forest Grove, where he played football and majored in sports communication. My youngest, Cade, is a junior at Lebanon High School.
Other than livestock, what are your hobbies?
My sons both play sports, so we spend a lot of time attending their sporting events. My oldest son played football at Pacific, but he also played football, basketball, and baseball in Lebanon. My younger son plays football, wrestles, and competes in track.
Livestock takes up a lot of my time, but I like to work out. I enjoy the gym atmosphere, lifting weights is my primary activity — that’s pretty much the extent of my free time.
I wrestled in high school, so much of my life was centered around school, raising sheep, wrestling, and competitive livestock judging.
Why did you stop coaching the livestock judging team?
It takes a considerable amount of time, and I’m fortunate to work with two of the hardest-working people on this campus: Jenny Strooband, who is legendary for her work ethic, and our newest instructor Sierra Meyers, who has taken on the role of livestock judging team coach. Sierra puts in so much time. Coaching is really intense, and unless you’re willing to put in hundreds of hours outside of class, you won’t be successful. She is deeply committed to her students’ success.
Coaching at a high level is really more suited to younger people. It was a natural transition for me to step back, although I still help and oversee things. We needed someone like Sierra to step in and actively coach students.
Tell me a little about the livestock judging team. How do they compete?
It’s a series of contests that happen, some on a national level, like in Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville, Kentucky; Houston, Texas; Oklahoma City, San Antonio; and Denver, Colorado. We also participate in smaller, more regional contests. The competitions start in October and finish up by mid-March.
The team travels to competitions to compete in judging livestock. Everyone competes as individuals, but there’s also a team score. A typical day at a contest begins at 4:30 or 5 a.m., as we have to be onsite by 6 a.m. and start judging at 7 a.m. We judge 12 classes of beef, sheep, swine, and goats. Each class has four animals. Most of the judging is done by noon, but the afternoon is reserved for oral reasons, where students are given one to two minutes to justify their reasons for their placings to the officials, and this can last until 6 or 7 p.m. This communication portion of the competition takes a lot of training.
In livestock production, there is a skill in selecting animals based on important traits. I’m probably biased, but I don’t know if there is any other activity that is better at refining skills in decision making, critical thinking and communication.
Students win by placing the animals correctly based on how the officials score them. Each class is worth 50 points, and each set of reasons is worth 50 points so there is an individual winner and team winner based on points.
How does the judging team perform?
Our team has been good. This year, the competition has been tough, and making the top 10 is always challenging. In Louisville, they placed seventh in the fall, and they just returned from Denver, where they placed 13th, but they won first in sheep and goats as a team. One individual placed eighth overall in the competition.
Many students who’ve been on the judging team go on to be very successful. For example, Lisa Charpilloz Hanson, a former team member, is now the director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Chanel Tewalt, another former member, is the director of the Idaho Department of Agriculture.
Any interesting facts about yourself that you’d like to share?
I’ve judged a lot of sheep shows across the country. One of the most interesting things is that I’ve been around long enough to see many students come through the program who are the children of my very good friends. Coaching them on the judging team has been awesome, and it’s great that their parents knew me when I was young and still chose to send their kids here with me.
I’ve also had the opportunity to serve as the officiant at the weddings of two different sets of students of mine that got married. I thought it was great they asked me to officiate, but I am not looking for a side gig.
What is something people should know about the agricultural science program?
How committed our faculty are to seeing students succeed in whatever field of agriculture they choose. We recruit, advise, and in many cases, help them find jobs or transfer to another school. We also help with finding scholarship opportunities.
I also think people should know that we’re the primary option in this region of the Willamette Valley, which is the grass seed capital of the world and a huge sheep-producing area. This valley really needs agricultural education at the community college level.
If you’d like to learn more about the animal science programs or the livestock judging team, you can contact Clay Weber at weberc@linnbenton (dot) edu.
This article originally appeared in the February 2025 edition of The Commuter.
