Last Christmas, Randy and Chelsea DuVall wanted to give their daughter, Harper, a gift that reflected their shared passion showing dairy cattle, would last longer than any toy and be more personal than a store-bought present.
“When you get a kid a toy for Christmas, it's super cool for two weeks and then gets tossed aside. We thought, with this being her first year in 4-H, we want it to be a big deal for her because it's something we all do as a family,” says Chelsea DuVall. “So we thought it'd be cool to watch her grow up with her own personal show box. Something to take a picture with each year and means more than just a toy.”
The couple both grew up showing dairy cattle and met when Randy came to Chelsea’s farm to buy a Brown Swiss calf. Today, they dairy together on Chelsea’s stepdad’s farm, North Lane Farm, in Union City, Ohio.
“We were proud to give something to Harper that she'll get to take with her to all our shows. Hopefully, when she's 15 or 16 she’ll think back and say, ‘Wow, Dad and Chelsea made this for me when I was 9,’” Chelsea says. “The show box is a family staple. We still take my show box, which is my stepdad’s old show box, to every show. We always take trophy pictures with it. Hopefully, Harper also makes memories with her show box throughout the years and thinks back to it as a cool, meaningful gift.”
Chelsea says she grew up with a homemade horizontal trunk-shaped show box where everything was thrown in by the end of a show and halters were stored in a separate cargo box. So she went on the Dairy Moms Facebook group to ask other women for ideas as part of their brainstorming process.
“We pretty well knew what features we wanted because we had seen other people’s vertical metal show boxes and we wanted it to be super functional,” Chelsea says. “We really wanted something Harper could hang the show halters up in, organize them by size and be able to see them clearly. That was our main goal.”
What began as a simple idea in Chelsea’s mind quickly turned into a much bigger undertaking. While she imagined a quick weekend build, Randy knew it would take careful planning. He sketched out the design and precise measurements, and after a trip to Lowe’s for supplies, the couple got to work cutting, assembling and turning their vision into a one-of-a-kind show box.
“The framework is all 2-by-2s and then the outside side is half-inch plywood. The framework for the wheels I built out of angle iron, pipe and some ready rod for the axle. The two wheels are solid rubber,” Randy DuVall says. “The handle on the back, I built out of angle iron and pipe, and welded and bolted them to it for loading. Then there are handles located on each side where you can grab a hold of them, pick it up and set it in the truck or trailer.”
Randy admits the biggest challenge was getting the angle iron right for the wheel frame and building the door due to the shelving built into it.
“We made shelves in the door for aerosol sprays and stocked it with a couple plastic feed pans to soak beet pulp in, a wash bucket, wash brushes, a tailbrush, Final Bloom, Revive, a set of hair ties and Band-Aids,” Chelsea says. “We also got locker kits and put a mirror, whiteboard and little plastic cubbies to hang in the show box. We even put in battery-operated lights so she could see everything and just did what we thought would be the most useful for Harper.”
Randy and Chelsea decided to leave the show box in the barn because it was too big and heavy to bring into the house. So they created a scavenger hunt with clues for Harper to open as her final gift, which would lead her to the big present with a bow in the barn.
“When she was done opening her gifts on Christmas morning, we told her she had one more present. So she read the clues, and when she opened the door and saw the big present, she said, ‘Whoa, what’s that?’ Chelsea says. “When she opened it, she was speechless and in awe once she realized it was her own show box made just for her. When she opened the door to the box, she said, ‘Is this show harness mine?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ She always wanted one of her own and immediately put it on before she went through the rest of the box.”
Harper completed a scavenger hunt with clues which led her to her big present with a bow out in the barn. Image provided by Chelsea DuVall.
Randy says he felt happy that Harper appreciated everything he did to build the show box.
“It was super cool to see his hard work, what he had done for our daughter and watch him see how happy she was,” Chelsea says. “It made us happy to see that she was excited to show cows the next 10 years in 4-H and beyond.”
This past summer marked Harper’s first year in 4-H; she showed three head of Brown Swiss at the Ohio State Fair and then took eight head to the local county fair. The highlights of her show season were having the first-place Brown Swiss Spring Calf in the Junior Show at the Ohio State Fair and placing first in Junior Showmanship at her very competitive county fair. She also showed at two additional county fairs.
“We are super glad she is interested in showing. Right now, she likes her Jerseys because they're small and she's little for a 9-year-old, but she enjoys showing Brown Swiss and Holsteins as well,” Chelsea says. “She has showed calves ever since she was 4 in Pee Wee.”
Randy’s advice to farmers who may also want to build their own show box as a Christmas gift is to have lots of patience and to start early.
“Have a good solid plan, try to think about what works best for your family and how you do things. Our priority was having a nice place for our halters,” Chelsea says. “Also, make it a reasonable size for whoever's going to be handling it. Something we wish we would have done is made the wheels a little bit wider on the back because when it's full and tilted back on the wheels, they're a little close. So just think about the weight that's going to be in it when it's finished.”
