Mark Goes of Odell, Neb., was named the 2012 American Gelbvieh Association (AGA) Member of the Year.
The AGA Member of the Year award is presented annually to an outstanding member who gives their time, talent, and dedication to further the improvement of their state and national association.
Goes has been a member of the Gelbvieh Association in Nebraska (GAIN) since 1987 and the American Gelbvieh Association since 1988 as owner of M&P Gelbvieh, which he owns with his wife, Patti, and daughter, Tricia.
Goes has served on the Board of Directors for each association. He has been a director for seven of the past eight years with GAIN, where he worked to create the GAIN field representative position. He serves on the AGA Board of Directors, and was recently elected as the 28th president of the American Gelbvieh Association. Additionally, he has written six published articles in Gelbvieh World.
As a champion for youth, Mark and Patti have been junior GAIN sponsors for the last 10 years. Goes has played an instrumental role in developing and carrying out the American Gelbvieh Junior Association (AGJA) live carcass evaluation contest. His efforts brought the contest from a concept to a reality. Recently, Mark and Patti served on the AGJA Twister Classic host committee which planned and carried out a very successful national show for more than 150 AGJA exhibitors and their families.
M&P Gelbvieh has built a reputation of raising high-quality and showring-competitive cattle. M&P Gelbvieh has exhibited cattle at the National Western Stock Show (NWSS) for 10 years and taken home many purple ribbons. In 2005, PMG Pegasus 01P, a bull bred and raised by M&P Gelbvieh, was named champion of the Breeder's Choice Gelbvieh Bull Futurity. They have also exhibited cattle many times at the American Royal, and in 2010 showed the reserve grand champion Balancer¨ female.
Outside of M&P Gelbvieh, Goes is an instructor of livestock production at the Beatrice campus of Southeast Community College in southeast Nebraska. In 1999, he was responsible for adding a registered Gelbvieh and Balancer herd to the beef program at SCC.
Goes served as a member of the steering committee for the Nebraska Grazing Conference and is a member of the Nebraska Cattleman's Association. He was the first certified ultrasound technician in Nebraska and has been performing ultrasound services to Gelbvieh breeders since 1997.
