RAPID CITY, S.D. – Eighteen-year-old Mackenzie Campbell isn’t afraid of stiff competition at all. So, when he won a sheep shearing title in Ohio in 2019 and the Michigan state title in 2020, he decided to test his skills last month at the National Sheep Shearing Championships in Rapid City.

It was more than just “shear” luck that this Palmyra, Ohio, resident finished first in the event, beating out many other competitors. He gives credit to the many, many hours of practice at a young age. He started shearing when he was just 12.

“My dad shore, and my grandpa sheared,” Mackenzie said. “I enjoyed watching competitions and wanted to start sheering and I’ve been at this the past six years.”

Mackenzie was crowned champion in the Beginners division at the James Kjerstad Event Center at the Black Hills Stock Show.

“I’m a very competitive person, so I enjoy the competitive side of this,” Campbell said. “My biggest challenge centers on how much the sheep wishes to cooperate. A lot of mental preparation goes into this in getting ready for a workday. I also make sure the shearing equipment is ready.

“To think that my grandfather started doing this just to learn how to do his sheep. Then people started calling him to do it. Now, here I am doing the same thing.”

Shearers had to follow a particular pattern: take the wool off the belly; take out the rear hip on the left side; move up the neck, and square off the left shoulder; take off the wool across the back; and finally, move down the left side, and finish up on the right hip.

The competitors had to complete the above task on two or three sheep in as little time as possible.

A shearing contest such as this one is based on time and second cuts in the wool. Judges in front watch for those. Back judges look for sheep quality, like nicks on the sheep.

Campbell said the most difficult part of learning the process centered on the required endurance levels, calling them mental as well as physical. “The physical amount, you actually feel,” he said. “The mental, you just have to keep yourself pushing.”

Mackenzie shears part time, mostly during the weekends on his family’s operation. He once sheared 120 head in one day.

“When you shear it shows you that your speed and time isn’t always everything,” he said in describing what he learns at each competition. “The condition of the sheep matters a lot too, and how consistent you are on the way you do it. I always try to treat the sheep as good as I can.”

Campbell said he enjoys shearing sheep with a really tight skin, with all wool and no hair. His ideal size for a sheep is medium and he enjoys shearing wool that is roughly two inches in length.

He grew up shearing, often in competition with his cousins and with the support of his younger brother, Kendrick.

“He’ll shear them and I’ll take them back to the pen or we’ll just kick them up and I’ll bag the wool,” Kendrick said.

Their father, Chuck, is proud of their interest in shearing. “Mackenzie is kind of a dying breed and willing to do this kind of work,” Chuck said. “It definitely makes me happy to be able to see them succeed at it and go even farther than I ever have with it.”

Chuck Campbell won the Ohio state championship in 1993. The two share space on the state championship trophy.

Mackenzie Campbell said he went into the competition with a simple goal of making the next round. The top six progressed from the preliminary to the semi-finals. There were 12 competitors in this field.

“We knew Mackenzie was good as he won two state championships, but we weren’t sure how good compared to the shearers coming in from the west, who may have had more experience,” his father said. “Some of them could join the crew to raise thousands of sheep a year for three years. I was worried that we were biting off more than we could chew. So, I figured we would make a family vacation of it and see how we did.”

Speed is key and the target time to shear a sheep is 90 seconds. Points are deducted for every 20 seconds after that deadline.

Judges evaluate the handling of the sheep, if there are any cuts on the sheep’s body, the condition of the wool and the appearance of the cut sheep. Judges watch the clippers in action and examine the handiwork after the clippers are turned off. Competitors shear two animals in each heat.

Mackenzie Campbell had the top score in each round, and won the final round by 12 points over the second place finisher.

Campbell is a senior at Southeast Local School District and plans to attend the University of Northwestern Ohio in the fall. He dreams of one day traveling around the world shearing sheep.

Some crews will travel over to Australia and stuff and shear over there for another three or four months, so I’d love to join a crew and do nothing but shear,” he said. “Until then, going back to Ohio and winning that again this year would be good.”