Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876–1936)
John Alexander Craig
CRAIG, JOHN ALEXANDER (1867–1910), inducted by 1920
Educated at Ontario Agricultural College and University of Toronto, John A. Craig, from Russell, Ontario, was considered the “father of the technical art of live stock judging in America” (Breeder’s Gazette, 1910). While still a student, he edited the Canadian Live Stock Journal, and in 1889 (at a very young age), was chosen to head the first American college devoted to animal husbandry at the University of Wisconsin. He subsequently held faculty and experiment station positions at Iowa State, Texas Agricultural College, and Oklahoma State. Craig developed the livestock judging score card system and worked with others to establish uniform scoring based on defined and outlined standards of type for the respective breeds. Judging Live Stock, which he published in 1901, was the authoritative work on the subject for many years. Professor Craig led efforts to organize the first major intercollegiate judging contests, at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in 1898 and at the International in 1900. Suffering from poor health, he died on his San Antonio ranch in 1910, ending a brief but significant career in animal husbandry education.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 72