Every day I hear someone, quite possibly myself, complaining about a stupid decision made by a policy maker or elected leader. Not often enough do I hear about what people have done to turn those decisions into a positive community endeavor.
However, I recently attended the Sixth Annual Meat-In Day in Sterling, Colorado, and the Santomaso family has set the bar on how to turn it into a successful community event.
For those that might not remember, in 2021 Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced that March 20 would be a statewide “meat-out day”. I spent that entire day in Colorado going from one community event to another because the everyday people of Colorado were not going to be a part of discouraging meat consumption. Instead, they turned the tide and celebrated it as Meat-In Day. While I participated in five different events from Sterling to Brush to Denver, the one that set the bar was held at the Sterling Livestock Commission Company.
This livestock sale barn has been in the Santomaso family since 1958 and Jim, Becky and their son Jason carry on the tradition today with pride and a community-first mentality. That first event was in the yard as they pulled a flatbed in front of a bull-rack trailer and auctioned off a load of donated items. More than 2,400 people showed up and the auction gathered $130,000 for two local non-profits that assist the families of servicemen and women.
That first event was such a success that Jason decided to make it an annual celebration and this year was incredible. I started my day with breakfast at the J & L Café where I overheard a young woman asking people at the cash register if they were going to the meat-In. That woman turned out to be Suzanne McMahon, the owner of J&L. When I settled up, she told me she was shutting her place down at 11 a.m. so everybody could go to the meat-In.
Everyone did go to event in Sterling. Attendance topped 3,000 and the sixth annual event has now pushed the total contributions to more than $1 million. As impressive as that is, the true success story is the beauty of this community celebration.
A couple of years ago Jason decided to add an auctioneering contest as part of the event. Fifteen auctioneers from eight states took turns selling the donated items as they battled for the 2026 title. The youngest contestant was Ben Walker, a local senior at Sterling High School, who was incredible. Madison Ramirez, from Arizona, was the first female auctioneer and she got to compete against her father, Paul Ramirez. Madison finished fourth in the competition and Colonel Kyle Layman of North Platte, Nebraska, was crowned the champion auctioneer for 2026.
Most of attendees that showed up were from the Logan County area, but those that came from other parts of the country all said the same thing: “We need to go home and start one of these in our community.” The time is now to build strong communities. We can certainly find plenty of problems in the world, but strengthening our local community is not just a good idea, it is essential.
There are plenty of vocal people who want to eliminate and fabricate reasons that cows should not be here with us on the planet. The truth is that humans and the planet are completely dependent upon ruminant animals grazing and improving the ecosystem.
When it comes to the nutritional density of the meat items they give us, nothing else stacks up. My sincere appreciation to Jason Santomaso for continually leading by example instead of just crying about all the things that are wrong with this world. Thanks to the people of Logan County for giving Gov. Polis at least one positive legacy for all of Colorado to celebrate.
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the view of High Plains Journal. Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of agriculture. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com or email Trent at [email protected].
