We caught up with Mr. Austin Thompson after he judged the NJSA Gilts at the 2022 Natinal Junior Summer Spectacular. Check out his thoughts below…

What class was the deepest?
There was two classes that stick out to me. The first one was with grand overall gilt and the reserve division two gilt, they were first and second in that class. The other one I recall was with the reserve duroc and two other top five division placing gilts.

Toughest placing/call of the day?
The toughest placing for me was that class with three gilts placing in the division. All three of those were class winning caliber gilts and was a lot of fun to sort because of their quality yet vast differences they had.

Did any breeds/divisions surprise you?
I expected the top end quality to incredibly good but I would say the depth all the way down was awesome to see.

For you, what was the most memorable moment of the show?
The whole experience is what I’ll take home from the show. This show was the only show as a kid my family went to outside of our home state of Kansas, it meant a lot to me and my family to get to judge.