PHOTO COURTESY OF AMBER MONAT

DES MOINES – Clutier Cowboys and Cowgirls 4-H Club member Ava Monat (pictured) competes with her crossbred steer Teddy in the Beef of Merit Show on Tuesday, Aug. 12, at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines as the only participant from Tama County.

Monat, who graduated from North Tama this past May, received a blue ribbon for her efforts which included spending a blistering 14 1/2 hours the previous Friday tracking down Teddy and two other escaped cows through the cornfields surrounding her family’s rural Traer acreage. She was aided in her chase by her siblings and boyfriend, Tyler Gates.

Monat’s mother Amber told the newspaper the gate was accidentally left open, an action which seemingly allowed the bovine posse to briefly cast themselves in a live-action corn maze version of Pac-Man.

On Wednesday, Aug. 13, Teddy earned Monat a red ribbon in the Market Beef Show, missing out on a blue only because, per the judge, he had ‘too much muscle.’ Perhaps a result of his odyssey through the fields the week before? Who knows, but as they say, only in Iowa!