Artist: Richard Stewart Halstead (born 1947)
Jarold Callahan
CALLAHAN, JAROLD (1954–2023), inducted 2023
After his own successful career competing in livestock judging for Oklahoma State University, Jarold Callahan accepted a position as chair of the Agriculture Division at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M and judging team coach, but he soon returned to his alma mater. Recognized as National Intercollegiate Livestock Judging Coach of the Year four times, his OSU teams won 42 percent of their contests. An award-winning teacher, Callahan also supervised the OSU Purebred Beef Center and Totusek Arena. There, he helped revolutionize the standard “ideal” beef type to a more moderate framed, wider built, deeper bodied, easier keeping kind. Callahan and Dr. Robert Totusek (also a Saddle & Sirloin inductee) collaborated to conduct the 1982 “National Steer Symposium” and the 1988 “Blueprint for the Right Kind” at OSU.
After leaving Oklahoma State, Callahan served as Executive Vice President of the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and was Superintendent of the American Royal Intercollegiate Livestock Judging Contest from 2001–2007. For more than a quarter century, he served as the President of Express Ranches in Yukon, OK—the largest purebred seedstock operation in North America—and operated his family-owned Callahan Cattle Company. He was in demand as a judge, served as president of the American Angus Association Board, and spearheaded the creation of the Cattlemen’s Congress in Oklahoma City in 2021, among other pursuits. Jarold Callahan passed away unexpectedly just weeks after his portrait was accepted into The Livestock Industry Hall of Fame. His presence in the collection will serve as a lasting tribute to his accomplishments as a teacher, coach, administrator, lobbyist, businessman, cattle breeder, and industry leader.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 60