The Collegiate Cattlemen’s Club might be one of South Dakota State’s newest clubs, but it’s already one of the biggest.
The university is home to over 250 clubs and organizations, allowing students to gather and talk about shared interests, contribute toward a shared goal and volunteer. At Monday’s Students’ Assocation, Sen. Carter Howell told his fellow senators the CCC is already the second biggest club on campus.
Isaac Berg, a senior studying animal science from Pipestone, Minnesota, got the idea for the club after attending CattleCon in Houston, Texas, two years ago.
“I saw all these other cattlemen’s clubs from different universities participating in events at CattleCon,” Berg said. “I thought to myself, ‘why doesn’t SDSU have one?’”
After that convention, Berg started the process of creating the club. During the spring semester of 2023, he gathered members, spread word about the organization and created the founding documents. In February, the club was officially chartered.
The clubs very first meeting in March, about 100 students drove to the SDSU cow calf unit to tour the facility. For Berg, seeing that many students attend the meeting assured him that the future of the club would be in good hands.
“I felt like I succeeded,” Berg said. “To see how excited people were to join or even just to learn about the club leading up to the meeting was a really gratifying experience.”
On Sept. 14, the CCC hosted its first meeting of the fall semester, serving ribeye sandwiches and listening to speakers from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. 130 students signed the attendance form, shattering the attendance record from the last meeting.
“Seeing 130 kids was pretty exciting,” said Mitchell Vander Wal, president of the Collegiate Cattlemen’s Club. “At the same time, I was kind of nervous. I wanted to give them a meeting that they were expecting.”
At that meeting, two speakers from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) talked to students about the work they do on a national level. Galle Waletich, NCBA’s manager of membership and affiliate services, presented on the benefits of becoming a member.
“I am very excited,” Waletich said. “As a South Dakota resident and SDSU alum, I think it’s very important for the future of our youth industry to get involved at a young age and take advantage of the different opportunities.”
Waletich was also surprised at the number of students who showed up.
“The clubs I was involved in had maybe 10 to 15 people, 20 on a good day,” Waletich said. “People just kept coming and coming and I thought this had to be one of the biggest clubs on campus.”
The new student organization is currently thinking of ways to get students even more involved in the club while learning about the cattle industry in South Dakota. Vander Wal said the officer team is excited to potentially host an event next semester.
“We’re hoping to go on a spring trip,” Vander Wal said. “Our goal is to go west and look at some various parts of the cattle industry out there, whether it’s genetic advancement, large-scale production, seedstock production, commercial production and feedlot feeding cattle.”
The executive team would like to invite all cattle enthusiasts to the next meeting, which will be on Nov. 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. in Animal Science 126.
