Livestock portraits part of American Royal heritage

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)--"You have to get the eyes right," Bud Snidow said. "If you don't, you miss it altogether."

Whether he's painting a portrait of a person or of a prize-winning bull, Snidow says the trick to capturing any living creature, human or quadruped, is to master the eyes.

His portraits of prized livestock grace the walls of the American Royal Museum. But his paintings are just one of the ways Snidow has made his mark on the Royal in the more than 50 years he has served as organizer and volunteer.

As assistant secretary of the American Hereford Association, Snidow worked for 30 years as an organizer and announcer for the Hereford show. Now 89, he has spent the last 20 years of his retirement volunteering: announcing for livestock shows, doing the occasional odd job, introducing inner-city children to the world of agriculture at the Royal's KALF (Kids Agricultural Learning Fest) Days.

Snidow started at the Royal in the 1950s and remembers how he helped line up cattle for competition, announced for shows and presented prizes to winners every year. Through the years, he has watched the show evolve into the livestock and horse show and barbecue festival it is now.

In 1983, the annual Hereford Show at the Royal was named in his honor--the "Bud Snidow Royal." He's got his very own life-sized photo cutout in the museum to pay homage to his contributions through the years. It looks a lot like him--at least 30 years ago, he jokes.

Snidow said he's never wanted to stop being a part of Royal. It's a way of keeping up with old friends and passing on an agrarian way of life he treasures.

"Some say you're just born into it," he said. "They say it's a calling."

More than 40 years ago, he decided to try his hand at capturing on canvas the lifestyle that he loved. Inspired by painters such as Frederic Remington, he taught himself to paint. "I just saw those paintings and said, 'I believe I can do that, too,'" he said.

Of the more than 50 paintings he does a year, half are commissioned portraits of livestock. Such paintings still are common in livestock circles. It's a tradition from the 1700s, before photography, when cattlemen, breeders and farmers wanted to immortalize their prized animals, he said.

Snidow said people still want portraits of their livestock for the same reason they like to keep photographs of their grandparents. "We want to preserve their importance and remember what they looked like," he said. Such paintings serve as reminders of "where we came from."

He passes those reminders along, as well, to the youngsters he teaches in KALF Days school clinics. To many of them, he's an ambassador from an arcane world they've never had admission to.

He helps translate a bit of the "livestock vernacular," as he calls it.

Do you know what the withers are, he'll ask. (It's the highest part of the back at the base of the neck of a horse, cow, sheep--it's how the animal's height is measured.)

For many of the children who have never set foot on a farm, it's the first time they've witnessed a cow moo, a horse neigh or a goat or sheep bleat, he said.

He gets a kick out of seeing young eyes light up in amazement when they see firsthand how you get milk from a cow, for example.

And the impromptu magic trick--the kind your favorite uncle knows, usually with a small stone or coin disappearing and reappearing behind stealthy hands and children's ears--never hurts, of course.

"When I pull a nickel out of their ear, they get all excited," he said. "If it's a group of 10 of them, all 10 want you to do it to them, too."

It's fun to share his world with those youths, he says. That's why he does it every year--it's also why he keeps coming back to the Royal year after year.

"It's a way of life you'd like to see continued," he said.

Date: 12/21/06

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