The untold stories of Rudy Missy, Blackrose, and the stockmen who saw what the experts couldn’t

It was early October in Madison, Wisconsin, and World Dairy Expo week had arrived.

For the Genosource team back in Iowa, this year carried extra weight, this year carried extra weight. Ladyrose Caught Your Eye—the Unix daughter they’d acquired immediately after Madison in 2021—had already achieved EX-95, cementing her place among the breed’s elite. Now she was back on the colored shavings, a three-time class winner, an All-American, an All-Canadian, representing a bloodline that had defied the odds for three decades.

“She is one of those rare cows that combines cow family, show-winning type, and high genomics,” Tim Rauen of Genosource recalls. Standing in that ring in October, she was living proof.

I’ve covered many Expos over the years I’ve been writing about this industry. But what keeps bringing me back to this cow isn’t the banners or the scores—it’s knowing the decades of setbacks, second chances, and stubborn belief that led to her standing in that ring.

Because here’s what most people watching that week didn’t fully understand: they weren’t just witnessing one cow’s achievement. They were seeing the living proof of stories that began with barn fires, bankruptcy courts, rock stars investing in Holsteins, and phone calls that changed everything.

And those stories—the ones behind the cow in front of them—are what this is really about.

The Call That Changed Everything

Twenty-one years earlier, on a February afternoon in 2003, snow was falling sideways outside the Wisconsin Holstein Convention Sweetheart Sale.

The room was emptying. Experienced breeders—men who had driven through farm country slush and missed morning milking to be there—were already heading for the exits. A five-year-old Holstein named Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy stood in the ring, and the bidding had stalled at a price that felt almost insulting.

Her rump “wasn’t entirely balanced.” That’s what they were saying. And in the unforgiving world of elite cattle auctions, that phrase might as well be a death sentence.

Steve Hayes watched another bidder shake his head and walk away, and felt that familiar mix of disappointment and creeping doubt that every breeder knows—the voice that whispers whether you’ve been fooling yourself all along. This cow he’d helped develop, believed in, poured years into. Was she really going to slip through the cracks like this?

Then the phone rang in the back office.

Matt Steiner’s voice crackled through from Pine-Tree Dairy down in Ohio. The man had never even laid eyes on this cow in person. But something about her—maybe thirty years of studying what makes genetics tick, maybe an instinct honed through decades of disappointment and triumph—told him everything he needed to know.

His $8,100 bid secured what would become the  2014 Global Cow of the Year.

Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET stands proudly at Select Sires, representing the commercial pinnacle of the Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy genetic legacy. From a cow that couldn’t attract buyers at $7,000 to a bull achieving millionaire status in AI sales, Supersire embodies how exceptional maternal genetics can reshape an entire industry. His success validates what Matt Steiner saw in that 2003 phone bid—sometimes the most transformative genetics come in unexpected packages.

I keep thinking about that moment. A roomful of experts walking away from a cow that would reshape the breed, and one man on a phone line three states away who saw what they couldn’t. Today, her descendants include Seagull-Bay Supersire—with over 100,000 daughters worldwide—and Genosource Captain, who held the #1 TPI position for seven consecutive proof runs through December 2024 and remains among the breed’s most influential sires. The genetic value flowing from that single $8,100 phone bid has generated hundreds of millions in semen sales.

But here’s what I keep coming back to when I think about this story. It’s something Steve Wessing, Missy’s original co-breeder, said when reflecting on her journey: “I don’t think she would’ve ever scored EX-92 at our place.”

That’s the kind of honesty you don’t hear often enough—recognizing that cattle reach their potential in different environments, under different management systems. Matt Steiner didn’t just buy a cow that day. He gave her a stage where she could finally perform.

Of course, Steiner didn’t know that’s what he was doing. Nobody did. That certainty only comes later, when you’re telling the story. Living it is different.

The Two Steves: A Friendship Built Across a Fence Line

To understand how Rudy Missy even existed, you have to go back to a different Wisconsin pasture in the early 1990s.

Steve Wessing had started with eighteen registered Holsteins from the Milkstein herd—animals that came with warnings. “There wasn’t a lot of type in that herd,” the industry veterans told him and his wife, Cheryl. And honestly? The experts weren’t wrong. When those first cows got classified, only one scored Very Good: Milkstein Citation Della.

Nothing about Della screamed “genetic goldmine.” She was just a cow that showed up every day, did her job, and kept producing. The kind of cow you don’t think twice about.

But Steve Wessing trusted his eyes over other people’s opinions. And his neighbor, Steve Hayes, was paying attention.

Here’s what I love about this part of the story. Hayes walked past that fence line between their places every morning. He’d pause and study those young cows—the depth through their hearts, how they moved around the feed bunks. That quality you recognize when you see it, even if you can’t quite name it yet.

When Della’s granddaughter Wesswood Elton Mimi came along, both Steves knew they were looking at something special.

“She was a treasure of a cow, very low maintenance, easy to work with,” they’d later recall. “When new feed was delivered, she made sure she had her own place at the front of the line.”

I can picture her so clearly from that description. The kind of cow with personality. The kind you remember long after she’s gone.

Then the fire came.

The Night Everything Almost Ended

Anyone who’s been through it knows that a barn fire is the nightmare that never fully leaves you. The smell of smoke mixing with the panicked bellowing of cattle. The helplessness of watching years of work potentially disappear into the night air. The questions that come later—what could I have done differently, was there something I missed, why us?

Devastating flames tore through the Wisconsin barn one night, and thirteen-year-old Claudette—Mimi’s grandmother, who had already pumped out a quarter million pounds of milk for the Wessings—stood among the smoke and chaos. She survived, thank God. But hip problems from the trauma meant her production career was effectively over. She would have easily hit 300,000 pounds.

Steve Wessing stood in that ash-covered milking parlor afterward, doing the math that nobody wants to do. Adding up what was lost. Subtracting what insurance might cover. Trying to figure out if there was a path forward, or if this was the ending he’d never planned for.

By December 1994, he made the call that went against every farming instinct he had: dispersal sale.

Anyone who’s ever had to let go of something they built knows what that decision costs. It’s not just business. It’s admitting that sometimes the thing you poured yourself into doesn’t get to continue the way you planned. It’s signing the paperwork and then going home to a barn that feels different. Quieter. Wrong.

But then—and this is the part that still gets me—something happened that only happens when people genuinely care about each other.

Steve Hayes had worked out an understanding with his neighbor before the auction: if Hayes bid highest on Mimi, they’d own her together.

Think about that for a moment. A neighbor, watching another neighbor face the unthinkable, steps in instead of standing back. Not to buy cheap—to share the burden. To make sure the genetics survive. To keep his friend connected to something worth saving.

Watching Hayes keep raising his hand as the price climbed past what made most breeders squirm was something those present never forgot. When the gavel fell, two friends from rural Wisconsin suddenly owned what would become one of the most valuable cows in Holstein history.

Neither of them had any clue what they’d just bought.

The Heifer Calf Nobody Expected

When Mimi was bred to Startmore Rudolph—a breeding the AI stud specifically wanted because they expected a bull calf—the two Steves stood in that pasture together, both knowing this decision would either validate their partnership or haunt them for decades.

In 1997, a heifer calf was born: Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy.

At the time, a heifer when you wanted a bull just feels like the universe not cooperating. Again. You do the math on what you were hoping to sell, and you adjust. You move on. It’s only looking back that you can see how the thing that frustrated you became the thing that mattered most.

But that’s cold comfort when you’re standing in the barn wondering what went wrong.

As a cow, though, Missy became what geneticists call a “genetic multiplier”—ultimately producing eighteen sons in AI service and forty-two daughters classified Excellent or Very Good.

What nobody talks about is the waiting. You make a breeding decision, and you won’t really know if it worked for years, sometimes longer. You’re betting a piece of your future on outcomes you can’t see yet. Every one of these breeders lived through stretches where they just had to trust the process and keep showing up—not knowing whether they were building something or wasting their time.

Today, the Steiner family at Pine-Tree Dairy still welcomes Holstein enthusiasts during Ohio Holstein Convention tours. The legacy Matt Steiner’s phone call started continues through his sons, who initially had their doubts about Missy’s curved legs and long teats but learned to trust their father’s eye.

“We acquired her immediately after Madison in 2021,” Tim Rauen of Genosource recalls about Caught Your Eye, another cow woven into this genetic tapestry. “She is one of those rare cows that combines cow family, show-winning type, and high genomics.”

You see the same thing happening, over and over: stockmen seeing what others miss, trusting instinct over auction-day consensus, waiting to find out if they were right.

Breeding Gold from the Ashes of Financial Disaster

While Rudy Missy’s story unfolded in Wisconsin, another drama was playing out that would prove equally consequential—this one born from complete financial collapse.

The 1980s Investor Era had transformed dairy breeding into a playground for tax-bracket-chasing bankers. Section 46 of the Internal Revenue Code allowed wealthy outsiders to write off cattle purchases against their personal income, and prices went absolutely insane. Bulls that should have commanded $50,000 were selling for ten times that.

This was the era when John Lennon of The Beatles invested through George Morgan’s Dreamstreet operation—”threw so much money in the pot that they had to get rid of some of it very quickly,” as industry insiders recalled. Spring Farm Fond Rose, purchased for $56,000 with Lennon’s investment, sold for $250,000 just a few years later. Even rock royalty couldn’t predict which bloodlines would endure—but the money flowing into Holstein genetics signaled something extraordinary was happening in American agriculture.

Jack Stookey was the perfect man for that era—smooth as silk, could charm anyone. He built an empire on other people’s money, snapping up champions and dominating shows.

But bubbles always burst. They always do.

When the IRS started challenging these tax schemes, the money dried up overnight. What followed is hard to tell, even now.

On a Saturday afternoon in winter 1985, Stookey couldn’t pay his hired help, so he instructed them to load a trailer with bull calves destined for slaughter—animals he had previously planned to sell for breeding purposes. Among them were three sons of Continental Scarlet. An AI stud had already spoken for one of the bulls, but Jack couldn’t wait. The bills couldn’t wait.

I think about the hired hands who had to load those calves, knowing what was coming. About Jack making that call because there was no other call to make. About genetics that could have shaped the breed for generations, gone because the bills couldn’t wait another week.

There’s no clean way to tell that story. It’s just loss, compounded.

The Man Who Saw Something in the Wreckage

But where most people saw only the ashes of Stookey’s empire, Louis Prange saw something else entirely.

While everyone else was running from the mess, Prange looked at that barn full of world-class cattle sitting in legal limbo and recognized what nobody else could see. Decades of careful breeding don’t just vanish because someone files for bankruptcy, right? The genetics are still there. The potential is still there.

Prange worked out a deal with the bankruptcy trustee to lease the best cows, flush embryos, and split the proceeds. Among those salvaged genetics was Nandette TT Speckle-Red—the same red-and-white cow that had been dominating shows just years before.

What Prange did next still strikes me as quietly brilliant.

He planned what’s called a “corrective cross”—mating two animals whose strengths perfectly complement each other’s weaknesses. He wanted to breed Speckle to To-Mar Blackstar, a production powerhouse who could pump out incredible milk volumes but needed help on the structural side.

Jack, even in bankruptcy, was still trying to call shots, pushing for different bulls. When it came time to deliver the semen: “My tank ran dry,” he told Prange during that famous phone call.

So Prange went with his gut.

On March 24, 1990, Stookey Elm Park Blackrose came into this world—born in the shadow of bankruptcy court, conceived through a vision of what could be rather than what was.

Of course, standing in that barn in March 1990, nobody knew any of this. Prange had a calf. That’s all. Whether she’d amount to anything—whether any of them would—was still just hope and guesswork. The certainty only comes later, when you’re telling the story. Living it means showing up every day, not knowing if the bet will pay off.

First and Only: The Red Revolution That Changed Everything

The legendary Stookey Elm Park Blackrose, a cow whose massive frame and amazing udder, captured here, hinted at the genetic revolution she would unleash.

When Blackrose hit the auction block in December 1991, she was just an 18-month-old Blackstar daughter selling for $4,500.

Mark Rueth was fitting cattle at that sale, and he had this feeling about her. He told his buddy Mark VanMersbergen: “This heifer’s got something special. Deep-ribbed, wide-rumped… you just know.”

They partnered with the Schaufs from Indianhead Holsteins on what turned out to be one of the most significant cattle purchases in Holstein history.

Blackrose grew into a massive, commanding presence that dominated wherever she went. Her numbers were off the charts: 42,229 pounds of milk at five years old, with 4.6% butterfat and 3.4% protein. That EX-96 classification put her in conversation with the most structurally perfect cows ever evaluated.

But the real magic was what she produced.

The culmination of a dynasty: Lavender Ruby Redrose-Red (EX-96). In 2005, she achieved the impossible, becoming the first Red & White cow ever named Supreme Champion at World Dairy Expo, proving the enduring magic of the Blackrose line.

Her lineage eventually led to Lavender Ruby Redrose-Red, who in 2005 did something that still stops me when I think about it— first Red & White cow ever named Supreme Champion over all breeds at World Dairy Expo.

First and only. Let me tell you what that moment meant.

For decades, breeders working with red genetics had been told—sometimes subtly, sometimes not—that their cattle were “second tier.” Beautiful, sure. Competitive within their color class, absolutely. But Supreme Champion material? The conventional wisdom said no.

When Redrose-Red stood alone in that Coliseum at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, above every black and white champion in the building, it wasn’t just a win. It was permission. Permission to finally exhale. To stop defending what they’d chosen to love. To know, just once, that the doubters had been wrong all along.

For people who had spent their careers hearing “not quite good enough,” watching that cow take her place in history meant something that went bone-deep. The kind of vindication you wait a lifetime for and aren’t sure will ever come.

From bankruptcy to the history books in fifteen years.

And now, two decades later, that same bloodline flows through Ladyrose Caught Your Eye—the EX-95 cow who dominated the colored shavings at World Dairy Expo 2024 and proved the dynasty is far from finished.

What the Industry Still Gets Wrong

Here’s the uncomfortable truth that these stories reveal, and it’s something most people in our business don’t want to admit:

We are systematically terrible at recognizing genetic value when it stands right in front of us.

Rudy Missy’s “unbalanced rump” had breeders heading for the exits. Designer Miss sold for $2,100—the lowest price at the legendary 1985 Hanover Hill dispersal—while Brookview Tony Charity commanded $1.45 million at the same sale. Blackrose went for $4,500 at a bankruptcy auction. Even Lennon’s money couldn’t predict which Dreamstreet genetics would endure and which would fade.

Every single one of these so-called “rejects” outperformed the million-dollar sure bets.

The conventional wisdom of their eras dismissed them. The data available couldn’t fully capture what made them special. And yet, stockmen like Matt Steiner, Louis Prange, and the two Steves saw something—felt something—that the catalogs and classification scores couldn’t quantify. (For more on influential maternal lines, see The 7 Most Influential Holstein Brood Cows of the Modern Era.)

Today’s genomic tools are powerful. They tell us more than we’ve ever known. But even now, in December 2025, with all our technology, the fundamental challenge remains the same: the biggest mistake in dairy genetics isn’t buying the wrong cow—it’s walking away from the right one because she doesn’t look perfect on paper.

The Living Proof

As I write this, the legacies of these matriarchs aren’t historical footnotes—they’re actively shaping breeding decisions on farms from Wisconsin to New Zealand.

Genosource Captain—who held the #1 TPI position for seven consecutive proof runs through December 2024 and remains among the breed’s elite sires—traces directly back to Rudy Missy. The cow everyone walked away from at that Wisconsin sale barn is now the grandmother of one of the most influential bulls of his generation.

Ladyrose Caught Your Eye has produced four high-type sons by Lambda—currently one of the breed’s most sought-after sires for type—while continuing to dominate show rings. Her lineage traces directly back to Blackrose, the bankruptcy-born cow that rewrote what was possible for Red Holsteins.

And here’s something that keeps me thinking: Rudy Missy’s great-granddaughter, Ammon-Peachy Shauna-ET, was named 2015 Global Cow of the Year—making grandmother and great-granddaughter back-to-back Global Cow winners. That kind of consistency across generations isn’t luck. It’s something deeper.

Ammon-Peachy Shauna-ET in front of the milkhouse at Seagull Bay Dairy.

The Steiner family at Pine-Tree Dairy continues hosting tours for Holstein enthusiasts, passing on the philosophy that maternal lines matter more than we ever thought.

I’d be lying if I said these outcomes were inevitable. Good decisions help. But so does timing you can’t control, and breaks that could easily have gone the other way. The two Steves were skilled, but they were also lucky—lucky the fire didn’t take more, lucky Hayes had the cash to bid, lucky that heifer calf had the genetics she had. Skill positions you. Luck decides.

What This Means for All of Us

I’ve spent months with these stories, and what strikes me most isn’t the scale of the achievement—it’s how human the whole thing is.

These aren’t tales of corporate breeding programs with unlimited resources. They’re stories of neighbors becoming partners across fence lines. Of a man betting his career on a phone call to buy a cow he’d never seen. Of someone salvaging genetics from a bankruptcy court when everyone else had given up. Of friendships that turned into dynasties.

What drove all of them forward wasn’t just data or dollars. It was observation, intuition, and the willingness to trust what they saw when everyone else was walking away.

What I don’t want to do is make this sound easy—like all you need is good instincts, and everything works out. For every Rudy Missy, there are cows that didn’t pan out. Partnerships that didn’t survive. Bets that cost people money they couldn’t afford to lose. The stockmen in these stories weren’t right every time. They were right often enough, and they kept going anyway. That’s the part that’s harder to teach.

The lessons these matriarchs leave us are simple to say, harder to live:

• Trust your eyes over conventional wisdom. Steve Wessing bought cattle that others warned him about. Matt Steiner bid on a cow he’d never seen. Louis Prange invested in genetics that everyone else had abandoned.
• Build partnerships with people who share your vision. The two Steves created more together than either could have alone. Great genetics need great teams.
• Focus on transmission, not just individual performance. The cows that built empires weren’t always the flashiest—they were the ones who consistently passed their best traits to the next generation, regardless of the environment.
• Be patient through adversity. Fires, bankruptcies, dismissive auctions—these setbacks became stepping stones for those who kept going when quitting would have been easier. And quieter. And probably smarter, on paper.

The Question That Matters

The next time you’re at a sale—or walking through your own barn before dawn, studying a heifer that doesn’t quite fit the mold—I hope you’ll think about these stories.

That heifer in the back pen, the one with the slightly off topline your neighbor dismissed last week. Maybe she’s nothing special. Or maybe she’s carrying something you can’t see yet—something that won’t show up for another generation or two.

Somewhere right now, a cow that nobody’s paying attention to is quietly carrying the genetics that will reshape our industry for the next fifty years. The question isn’t whether she exists.

The phone’s ringing. The room’s going quiet. The experts are walking away.

And somewhere in that ring—or in your own barn tomorrow morning—there’s a cow nobody’s fighting for.

Maybe that’s the one.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• $8,100 built a genetic empire. Matt Steiner bought Rudy Missy by phone while experts walked away. She became the 2014 Global Cow of the Year—her descendants are worth hundreds of millions.
• The cheap cow won. Designer Miss: $2,100. Brookview Tony Charity: $1.45 million. Same 1985 sale. The “reject” outperformed the record-breaker.
• Friendship outlasts disaster. When fire forced Steve Wessing’s dispersal, his neighbor bid to share the loss—not profit from it. That partnership built a dynasty.
• Bankruptcy can’t kill great genetics. Louis Prange salvaged Blackrose from court chaos. Fifteen years later: the first and only R&W Supreme Champion in World Dairy Expo history.
• The cow nobody’s fighting for might be the one. Every empire here started with an animal that the industry dismissed. The next Rudy Missy is in someone’s barn right now. Maybe yours.

Learn More

• Component Gold Rush: Are You Still Breeding for Volume While Your Neighbors Cash In? – Capture the component premium by swapping volume-chasing for component-heavy breeding. This analysis arms you with ROI data showing how a 0.1% fat increase secures your milk check without adding a single extra stall.
• Bred for Success, Priced for Failure: Your 4-Path Survival Guide to Dairy’s Genetic Revolution – Protect your equity against the processing crisis where genetic potential outpaces plant capacity. This roadmap delivers a five-year survival strategy, positioning your operation against component caps and shifting processor contracts before they squeeze you out.
• Why This Dairy Market Feels Different – and What It Means for Producers – Double your genetic progress using targeted breeding programs that deliver 2% annual productivity gains. This blueprint for robotic ROI breaks down how technology investments translate into actual margin instead of just higher debt.

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