His family sold their farm when he was 13; then he sold his own elite herd in 2010 and has spent 16 years building other people’s champions. Last week, the industry called him into the ring.
World Dairy Expo public address announcer Brenda Lee didn’t say his name first. She read clues.
He started with a 13-year-old whose family farm had just sold, and who took over the show heifers at his uncle’s place. Next came an Illinois cattleman with seven junior All-Americans. Then a herd dispersed in 2010 with 41 head, every one Very Good or Excellent, and a rolling herd average above 28,000 pounds of milk. Last came a move to Chebanse to manage Butlerview Farm.
People in the Coliseum who’d been around a while had it figured out before the last clue. The announcer then asked Joe Price to make his way to the colored shavings.
That makes Price the 35th recipient of the Klussendorf-MacKenzie Award. World Dairy Expo gives it in memory of Duncan MacKenzie, who won the Klussendorf Award in 1961. In a ringside interview afterward, the host introduced him as a man “very well known for not being front and center”. That’s the guy behind the scenes, doing the work.
Price’s answer was short. “It means the world to me”.
An Award Built for Him
Some show-ring awards go to the person on the halter. The Klussendorf-MacKenzie goes to the character behind it. Expo’s release said Price “exemplifies the standards and character that established the Klussendorf-MacKenzie Award”.
Price saw it as a vote from his own people. “I’m up there with all my role models,” he said. “People I’ve looked up to, asked questions all these years, and then to hear my name announced, like voted by them to be there”.
The timing helped. On Thursday night, Butlerview Glitter Girl-ET was named Supreme Champion Heifer of Expo 2026. She’s owned by Clarkvalley, K. Doeberiener, P. Conroy and Butlerview. The barn had his back.
The Year the Farm Sold
The story starts in Amboy, Indiana, at Price-View Farms. Terry and Kathy Price raised four kids there until they sold out when Joe was about 13.
“That kind of broke my heart a little bit,” he said. He also admits he wasn’t sure back then that dairy was what he wanted. A lot of farm kids know that feeling. You don’t know how much the cows mean to you until the trucks load them.
The family moved, and Joe ended up at his uncle Jerry’s. His dad started buying good show heifers and developing them. The crew was his dad, his uncle Jerry, his cousin Gary, who clipped a lot of cattle, and his brother. Then the others drifted to other things. “The next step was I had to step up,” Price said.
Expo’s account fills in what stepping up meant. At 13 he became the main caretaker for the show heifers. He managed feeding programs, tracked how the animals were performing and kept pushing to improve. A show heifer’s year is a long string of small calls on feed, bodyweight, hair, legs and attitude, and they all show up on show day.
The clippers are where it stuck. “I developed a love and passion for it when I started clipping,” he said. Then he wanted more. “This was with the heifers, and I wanted cows, and I always knew I wanted to milk cows”.
He explained why in one line. “I didn’t know anything else, and I guess that’s where I feel comfortable and safe is being around the cows”.
A 33% Hit Rate on the Shavings
Price’s junior show record didn’t come from one lucky heifer.
As a junior exhibitor he earned 21 junior All-American nominations and turned seven into wins. On the open side, he exhibited two All-Americans and one Reserve All-American from eight nominations.
A quick note for readers outside the show world: an All-American nomination means a judging panel saw an animal as one of the best of her age across the season’s major shows. The win means she was named the best, or second-best. Getting nominated is hard. Winning is harder.
| Record | Nominations | Honors | Conversion |
| Junior All-American | 21 | 7 wins | 33% |
| Open All-American (as exhibitor) | 8 | 2 AA + 1 RAA | 38% |
Conversion rates are Bullvine calculations from the award citation’s numbers.
One in three junior nominations ended in a win. That doesn’t come from showing whatever’s in the barn. It comes from picking the right calves, getting them to peak at the right show and doing it again for years.
A 112.1 BAA, Then a New Path
Price married Amber, and they set up their own place. They have three children: Miles, McRae and Madison. “We milked cows and done our own thing,” he said, “and I achieved a lot of great memories and awards”.
That herd stands up next to anything in his later career. When it dispersed in 2010, the 41 head had a 112.1 BAA, every cow was Very Good or Excellent, and the rolling herd average was over 28,000 pounds of milk. Those cows weren’t just pretty. They were making milk.
Then the hard part. “I had my farming accident, and that kind of set me back a little bit,” Price said. “And I needed something different”.
He didn’t say more about the accident on camera, and it’s not our place to fill it in. What he did say was enough: a man with a herd most breeders would envy decided he needed a different path.
Jeff Butler called. He asked whether Price wanted to come manage Butlerview Farm “and help build the place up to what it is today”.
“I’m truly honored and grateful for that phone call,” Price said. “It was hard and very hard, but we made the jump”.
That move asked a lot of him. He sold the cows he’d bred and left the operation where he’d always made the calls, all to run someone else’s program. Plenty of good cattlemen couldn’t make that switch. Price made it with his whole family.
Building the Butlerview Legacy
“I believe it’s been about 16 years now, and time flies,” Price said. Expo’s citation describes those 16 years as central to building Butlerview’s legacy: numerous championships and hundreds of All-American and All-Canadian award winners.
Butler said so himself in 2013. In a Bullvine profile that year he said, “Joe and Amber Price are the farm managers and they are extremely talented, dedicated and loyal. I have known Joe and his family for over 30 years”.
That last line is the key. The phone call wasn’t a cold hire.
Monique
Cookview Goldwyn Monique was the one he called a “two-time Reserve Grand Champion here”. She was Reserve Grand Champion of the International Holstein Show in 2012, shown by Jeff Butler and Joe & Amber Price of Chebanse. She did it again in 2013, two years running, and won the four-year-old class that year.
She came with a price tag. Butlerview and Joe & Amber Price bought her at the International Intrigue sale for $490,000. The Bullvine’s sale coverage said it was the first time in more than 25 years that a reigning Grand or Reserve Grand Champion cow had sold at public auction. Monique delivered. She was Intermediate and Honorable Mention Grand Champion at the 2012 Royal, then Reserve Grand there in 2013.
“Memories I’ll never forget,” Price said, “and those cows I’ll never forget”.
Licorice
Rocky Mountain Talent Licorice’s story is shorter and harder.
Consigned by Ferme Blondin, she sold for $420,000 at the 2011 International Intrigue Sale. The buyers included Jeff Butler, Joe and Amber Price, and Terry and Jeff Price. She was All-Canadian and Reserve All-American Senior Three-Year-Old in 2010. In 2011 she was All-American and All-Canadian Four-Year-Old and Reserve Senior Champion at World Dairy Expo.
She died on October 31, 2012, from complications of cancer. At the time, the Butlerview team said she “could have went down in history as one of the all time greats”.
Fourteen years later, Price still talks about her calmly, and you can still hear how much she mattered. “Unfortunately, the one got her life cut a little short,” he said. “You know, that’s just what happens. But they were legends to me”.
Chassity and the Visitors
Price also brought up Regancrest S Chassity. He didn’t talk about a win. He remembered the people who came to see her. “Like she was the Global Cow of the Year, and to watch all the people come to the farm for her, like that was unbelievable”.
Chassity tied with Ralma Christmas Fudge for Global Cow of the Year in 2011. Two years earlier, the Chassity package sold for $1.5 million. Price’s memory is the breeders driving to Chebanse to stand at her pen, and him having her looking right when they got there.
Rooting for Every Halter
Ask Price about his current string and he won’t rank them.
“I have my internal favorites, but I kind of like to keep it that way,” he said. “I like cows for different reasons, maybe their attitudes, their personalities, but I just want them to all come out and do the best that they can do. And at the end of the day, I’m rooting for all of them”.
That’s a herdsman talking. A manager responsible for a whole show string can’t play favorites. The heifer at the end of the line gets the same morning as the one at the head of it.
What the 2025 Results Show
Here’s Butlerview’s 2025 run at the two biggest Holstein shows in North America. We built this tally from the published class results.
At the 2025 International Holstein Show, Butlerview Farm was Premier Exhibitor. West-Adub Lambda Sadie won the junior three-year-old class and went Intermediate and Reserve Grand Champion for Butlerview. In the published top-10 placings, Butlerview animals showed up in 11 of 18 individual classes, with 16 top-10 placings and three class wins.
| Class (Expo 2025) | Butlerview finish |
| Winter senior 2-year-old | 1st, 2nd, 3rd: Micheret South Believe, Goldenflo Lambda Dominate, Sandpiper Sidekick Disco |
| Junior 3-year-old | 1st, West-Adub Lambda Sadie, then Intermediate and Reserve Grand Champion. Plus 3rd and 8th |
| Fall calf | 1st, Our-Favorite Endzone-ET |
Bullvine tally of published top-10 class results.
The other eight classes added nine more top-10 finishes, from spring yearling through aged cow. That includes seconds for Miss Goldwyn Fantasy in the fall senior two-year-olds and Lo-Pine-VA-Lady Crush in the aged cows.
A few weeks later at the 2025 Canadian National Holstein Show at the Royal, Butlerview won three classes. Blondin Det Bacardi won fall yearling in milk, Micheret South Believe won winter two-year-old, and Miss Goldwyn Fantasy won fall two-year-old. The barn also took Reserve Intermediate Champion with South Believe and Honorable Mention Intermediate with Bacardi.
That’s calves through an aged cow from one barn in one week. Depth like that doesn’t come from one great cow. It comes from a system, and the system has been Price’s job for 16 years.
Never Afraid to Ask
When the interviewer asked what he’d tell the next generation, Price didn’t talk about genetics or feed programs. He talked about asking questions.
“You never can be afraid to ask questions,” he said. “All those guys that I get to stand next to now, I ask a lot of them questions, and none of them ever not gave me an answer. And to me, that’s the way it should be”.
Then he made it a two-way deal. “If you have the courage to come up and ask somebody, then they should give you the correct answer. And I would never tell you not to go do it because if you come and ask me, I’m going to try to shoot you straight and help you as much as I can”.
He closed with the most Joe Price line of the interview. “They’re just a normal person, just like me”.
That’s mentoring the way it actually works in a show barn. It’s the kid at the wash rack who works up the nerve to ask why the topline was set that way, and the manager who stops and actually explains it.
The Family Behind the Halter
Price gave credit away all through the interview.
He named his brother. “He’s a role model to me, and he’s always pushed me to be better”.
He named Amber more than once. “My beautiful wife Amber, who I work with every day, and she’s unbelievable, unbelievably talented. She probably deserves this more than me, to be honest about it”. The records back her up. Monique showed under Jeff Butler, Joe & Amber Price. Licorice’s buyers included Joe and Amber. Butler called them both the farm managers in 2013.
He named his kids, too. Miles, McRae and Madison are “all getting older now,” he said, and “it goes fast.” Then: “To get to be with my kids every day, it’s great”.
The boy whose family sold out at 13 now raises his own kids in a barn where they work alongside both parents every day.
Back to the Shavings
The day he was honored, Price wasn’t thinking about his career. Butlerview had done well in the senior Red & White show, and the black-and-white show was the next day. When the interviewer wished him luck, Price thanked him and went back to the barn.
That’s how this award works. Expo had to read clues out loud to get one of its hardest workers to walk out in front of the crowd. He lost a farm at 13. He turned 21 junior nominations into seven All-American wins. He built a 112.1 BAA herd and sold it. Then he took a phone call that changed his family’s life, and he has spent 16 years getting other people’s names into the results.
“It’s an honor,” Price said. “Truly an honor”.
Learn More
- $3,010 Per Heifer. 800,000 Short. Your Beef-on-Dairy Bill Is Due. — Breaks down the brutal math behind the 800,000-head replacement shortage. Arms you with concrete thresholds—like culling rates and pregnancy targets—to decide whether to rebalance your breeding sheet or prepare for forced liquidations.
- The Kid Who Forgot His White Pants: How Bert Stewart Became Dairy’s Greatest Showman — Reveals how another legendary Klussendorf winner turned a childhood brucellosis disaster into an unmatched 16 Royal Winter Fair Grand Champions. Follows Bert Stewart’s seven-decade career mastering both immaculate cattle preparation and the quiet mentorship that defines the industry’s greats.
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