COLUMN ONE : Fighting Foul Play at the Fair : Competition among young livestock breeders is now so cutthroat that cheaters resort to cosmetic surgery and steroids. Drug testing has joined blue ribbons as fixtures on the farm show circuit.

It is no small chore to collect urine samples from a pair of sheep, a pair of hogs and a couple of steers weighing in at more than 1,200 pounds apiece.

But George Teagarden, the highest-ranking official at the state Department of Animal Health, and Samuel Graham, the state veterinarian, were trying to keep the Kansas Junior Livestock Show honest. To that end, they spent the weekend of the exhibition waiting patiently, plastic bags at the ready, from the time the grand and reserve champions in each category were led out of the ring until the moment each animal felt the pressure for relief.

The fresh-faced youngsters who had raised the winners stood by, as jittery with nerves as they were amused. Even after this procedure, another exam would stand between the children and their checks.

As soon as the animals were slaughtered--as champions always are, for livestock shows are meant to encourage future meat producers--an inspector would extract both eyeballs, a pound of liver and a pound of muscle tissue for delivery to federal laboratories in St. Louis and Denver.

Drug testing is becoming as entrenched a ritual on the 4-H and Future Farmers of America circuit as the trophy belt buckle and the blue ribbon with rosette.

The animal husbandry contests, at state fairs and at independent shows that can draw from a region or from across America, are a tradition as sacrosanct among rural youth as the school football team. They are supposed to foster the work ethic and a sense of responsibility.

But that wholesome image is foundering upon a national scandal, the apparent climax to more than a decade of increasingly cutthroat competition.

Since the 1980s, the soaring amounts in winners’ purses--which can range from several thousand dollars to $500,000--have given rise to many ways to cheat: from dye jobs to cosmetic surgery, from the hiring of professional groomers to the injection of vegetable oil or saline solution for smoothing out flabby skin.

Over the last year has come confirmation of an even more serious shortcut. A steroid-like compound called clenbuterol, which shifts calories from fat production to muscle building, has been detected in top animals, as many as half a dozen at a time, at shows in Ohio, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky and Colorado. Championships have been taken away, prize money forfeited, criminal drug charges filed.

Clenbuterol testing has intensified recently after years of rumors about animals that would display a fairly average appearance at one event and arrive months later at another bulked-up and overwhelming--a “boxcar,” in livestock-fair argot.

Many shows had been reluctant to clamp down on rule violations, but this was a development that could scarcely be ignored. Clenbuterol is illegal in the United States; it caused 135 cases of illness in Spain in 1990 when consumers ate beef livers tainted with the drug.

“Remember,” cattle judge Jerald Callahan admonished his audience over the public-address system at the Kansas show, “we’re not trying to sell muscle, but also something people want to eat.”

Mused Graham, the veterinarian: “At first, it really upset me quite a little bit to be testing animals, raised by little kids, for drugs.” He shrugged. “Maybe a sign of the times, I guess.”

Changing the Rules

Now sponsors, teachers, parents and exhibitors are working to change show rules in an effort to shift the focus from money and prestige back to farm and family life. Several shows are creating scholarship funds for non-champion exhibitors and capping the amount an owner can collect from proceeds of prize-winners’ sales.

“The shows themselves have helped create the monster,” said Eddie Smith, the Oklahoma supervisor of agricultural education.

And the shows themselves may suffer. Monfort Inc., a large meatpacking company, decided in August to stop buying exhibition animals. The increased drug testing is a good start, but not enough to guarantee food safety, the firm concluded.

“We know most of the kids raise their animals the ethical way, but we can’t afford to let something fall between the cracks,” said company spokeswoman K. T. Miller. “We don’t just buy the champions. They can test the grand and reserve champions, but what about the wanna-bes?” The question is how many other supporters of the circuit will make similar decisions. Some are reserving judgment until next year.

The championships at the Kansas show, held over three days last month at an entertainment complex north of Wichita, were not nearly as lucrative as the most prestigious titles. At the American Royal in Kansas City, Mo., or the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo or the National Western Stock Show in Denver, first place can bring tens, in some cases hundreds, of thousands of dollars on auction night. Businesses pay a premium to reward the next generation of ranchers--and often donate the champions’ meat to charity.

Still, even the $7,700 fetched here by grand champion Jizz, a black Limousin steer raised by 16-year-old David Peine of Greeley, was enticing--especially compared to the steer’s market value of about $800. The $4,500 for runner-up Terminator, raised by Rusty Skinner, 13, of Hugoton, went into the boy’s college fund--already seeded by a similar amount he took in when last year’s entry also placed second.

Show officials say they don’t expect to find any residues in Kansas. But if any of the drug tests do turn up positive, no one will be shocked.

‘Snap, Crackle, Pop’

After all, evidence of cheating has turned up here before. Several years ago, meat processor Marvin Richards--at his small plant in nearby Valley Center--heard a startling “snap, crackle and pop” as he sliced away the hide of the carcass of the Kansas show’s grand champion steer. Air had apparently been injected to cover up ridges and indentations.

The meat could not be sold, Richards said. No telling what type of bacteria had entered along with the air.

The drug testing program here was one of the early ones. The urine sampling started four years ago, when Leon Dunn, a rancher in tiny St. John to the west, was president of the show board.

Dunn’s children had been exhibiting around the country, quite successfully, at the most prestigious shows. He’d grown suspicious of the pumped-up physiques he spotted among the competition.

“I’ve been a breeder of animals for 30 years,” Dunn said. “I could see what was happening. More than anything, our board of directors wanted to prevent any problem here.”

It was Dunn who came up with the idea of wedging a plastic bag between the inner and outer parts of an embroidery hoop, and using twine to tie the contraption around the animal; the collector stayed in place in the pertinent region.

At least for males, it did. “Oh, it’s a ewe,” Teagarden whispered in exasperation at his first glimpse of the 1995 reserve champion lamb. Connie, a crossbred, 124-pound sheep, was nuzzling towheaded Travis Nelssen, 11, as they posed for their official portrait.

Teagarden would have to wield the bag-and-hoop himself, swiveling it under Connie at the appropriate time. Jim Nelssen, Travis’ father, tried to speed up the process by delivering a bucket of water, but Connie just blew bubbles in it. Twenty minutes later, Teagarden made the catch.

The worst of it was that all this effort still would not put to rest the question of clenbuterol use. The urine test is useful for detecting antibiotics, sedatives and other dosages that violate show rules, but clenbuterol leaves the urinary system within a week or two.

At a meeting of exhibitors’ parents called 18 months ago by the Tulsa State Fair, one man taunted the livestock director, Barbara Wood. “He said, ‘We use it and you can’t catch us,’ ” Wood recalled.

Infuriated, Wood phoned the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. By last fall, the agencies had perfected a way to check the organs where clenbuterol tends to accumulate. The testing was limited to the top-ranking animals, because they generally are the only ones that are required to go to the slaughterhouse, and because testing costs $300 to $500 per animal.

But that was enough to make the point that clenbuterol use was widespread. At the Tulsa show, two steers, three lambs and a pig tested positive. In Denver, the top two steers tested positive. In Louisville, at the North America International Livestock Exposition, two lambs and a steer tested positive. At the National Western in January, the top two steers tested positive. And on and on and on.

30% Seen Affected

Scott McEldowney, who lives on a farm near Ansonia, Ohio, estimates that about 30% of the entries at livestock shows have been helped along by the drug. His daughter, Jessica, raises steers and he noticed “the people who were telling us about clenbuterol were the people who were turning around and beating us.”

He said he resisted temptation for five years. But last year, he started buying black-market clenbuterol syrup and, without telling Jessica, mixed it for 45 days into the feed of her Barney. “She was willing to put in all the work,” McEldowney said. “I was just trying to put her on an even playing field.”

Barney was a winner at the Ohio State Fair. With the new, posthumous test, McEldowney’s meddling was exposed.

He was prosecuted for illegal drug use and agreed in a plea bargain to stop raising livestock; he now works in a plastics factory making a fraction of his former income.

Jessica was banned for life from competing in the state fair. But, her father said, she has another steer, K. C., which she’s entered in the upcoming American Royal.

Another family touched by the clenbuterol scandal is having a harder time getting back into the show ring. Jamie Dildine, 16, was banned from the Tulsa State Fair. She was subsequently denied a chance to exhibit at the Oklahoma City Spring Fair. Her father, Stuart, sued in state court, but the judge ruled in favor of the fair.

Having lost his job as a high school agriculture teacher--in part because of the clenbuterol uproar--Dildine moved his family to Texas. He was recently notified that Jamie will not be allowed to enter the State Fair of Texas.

“We have a pretty good network,” said Barney Cosner, the livestock and agriculture director for the Texas show. He also disqualified Ryan Nash, a Texas boy who was forced to relinquish his National Western championship.

At the Kansas show, where sheep lolled in their pens and hogs breakfasted on scrambled eggs, the intensified drug detection efforts found wary support.

“Let them test,” said 18-year-old Justin LaRue, who fed his lambs before school and walked them after football practice to get them ready for display. “We’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

His father, Joe, 37, is not so sure. He doesn’t condone cheating: “They’re shortchanging the industry. They’re shortchanging the genetics.” But, he wondered, “What if some honest kid gets a positive test? Our government has been known to screw up. It only takes one mistake to ruin a reputation.”

Testing Is Costly

Honest children are already paying. The LaRues come from Coffey County in east Kansas, and at their local fair, meat processors had held back $10 for drug testing from the price of each lamb. “When you only get $100 for a lamb, that’s a lot,” LaRue said.

Sam Skinner had a different worry on his mind after his son, Rusty, took second place. “Let me ask you something,” he said to Graham as they waited for Terminator to fill the plastic bag. “What if someone sneaks in here tonight and gives a shot of clenbuterol to this steer before the auction?”

He was talking about jealousy, about sabotage. Already, he said, an anonymous caller had phoned show officials with a tip that the Skinners would bring a professional groomer, a rule violation.

Someone would watch over Terminator, Skinner was assured.

There was other talk, too, in muted, private tones. You can get around the new clenbuterol test if you put vinegar in the eye. You can get the same results as clenbuterol with the steroid ractopamine.

People nodded when they heard such confidences. They knew.