Over the next month we will be highlighting all six of our senior board candidates. Three new board members will be elected from the pool of candidates at the AHA Educational Forum and Annual Meeting at the end of October.

Steve is one of five generations of Merry Polled Hereford breeders spanning 115 years. Since 1982 he and his wife, Jann, have run a 50-head cow herd near Hartford, Wis. They raised their three children — Matt, Ginger and Dan — on the farm doing chores, working the fields and showing cattle. Steve and Jann continued the MGM herd from Steve’s parents, Marian and Gordon Merry, and also have partnership cattle with their son, Matt, and Steve’s cousin, Sondra Brancel, and her husband, Tod, of Next Generation Genetics near Endeavor, Wis. Steve and Jann have two young grandchildren in Denver, Willa and Jack Schell, whom they hope to involve in the Hereford tradition of the Merry family as they grow up.

The Merrys have marketed cattle from Minnesota to Texas and Pennsylvania to Wyoming. They have sold high-selling bulls in the Ohio and Illinois Beef Expos and the Wisconsin Hereford Association sales. They have held a semiannual production sale for the past 35 years known as Generations — A Family Affair Sale. Their goal is to breed the best possible cattle for all segments of the beef industry from producer to consumer, and they work to achieve that goal by emphasizing maternal, growth and carcass traits using as much data as possible including performance, ultrasound and DNA information. Most importantly, they listen carefully to feedback from their customers, both cattle buyers and freezer beef clients.

As a youth, Steve was active in the Wisconsin Junior Hereford Association (WJHA) and served two terms as its president and as a delegate to the AHA Annual Meeting. As an adult, Steve has served several terms on the board of directors of the Wisconsin Hereford Association and has been a delegate for Wisconsin at the Annual Meeting. He has also served as an advisor for the WJHA.

As a cardiologist, Steve has been the director of echocardiography at the Aurora Health Care offices in Menomonee Falls and Germantown as well as Community Memorial Hospital in Menomonee Falls. He has also served as the cardiac rehab director and president of the medical staff of Community Memorial Hospital. Steve has been named by his peers to be one of the top cardiologists in the Milwaukee area the last three years. Steve has promoted the health benefits of beef through articles in statewide newspapers and radio interviews and has been asked to speak at the Wisconsin Dietetic Convention in March 2019.