April 26, 2024

GCCC Faculty Member Selected as 2022 Carcass Show Judge for Beef Empire Days

Garden City, Kan (WesternKansasNews.Com) – Dr. Clint Alexander has been selected to evaluate the beef
carcasses for the 2022 Beef Empire Days Carcass Show, held at Tyson Fresh Meats. He currently
is a Professor of Animal and Food Science at Garden City Community College, where he also
serves as the head coach of the meat judging team and the director of the GCCC Meat Lab,
Buster Red Meats. He also leads one of the largest online food science/safety programs in the
US meeting the needs of the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service.


He is originally from Satanta, Kansas, where he was exposed to the meat evaluation and
processing world at a young age. He was a member of the 1990 State Champion Meats Team as
a freshman in high school. Clint attended Garden City Community College and was a member of
the 1993-94 Meats Team while earning an Associate of Science in Animal Science. He
transferred to Texas Tech University where he was a member of the 1996 National Champion
Meats Team and was voted as the Doug Hardison Award winner as the most outstanding
judging team member at Texas Tech that year. He never placed lower than 5th in any contest
during his judging career at Texas Tech.


After graduating from TTU with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Education, he
started graduate school and was coach of the 1999 Meats Team at Texas Tech University that
also won a National Championship. Upon completion of his Master of Science in Animal Science
with an emphasis in Meat Science and Muscle Biology, he was hired at Garden City Community
College in August of 2000. He has been the department leader and professor in Animal and
Food Science for 22 years as well as the head meats coach. He was awarded the Most
Outstanding Faculty Member at GCCC in 2006 as well as the NISOD teaching award in 2018. In
2007, he was awarded a sabbatical from GCCC and enrolled at Texas Tech University to attain a
doctoral degree. He was named an AT&T Chancellor’s Fellow and a member of the Golden Key
Honor Society during this phase of his education. He graduated in 2012 with a Doctor of
Philosophy degree in Animal Science with an emphasis in Meat Science and Food Safety.


During his tenure at GCCC, his meat judging teams have won 6 National Championships (2003,
2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020) and 6 Reserve National Championships (2001, 2005, 2009, 2011,
2018 and 2019), the Australian Championship (2014) and he has coached 33 All-American’s
since the award was created in 2002. With the opening of the GCCC Meat Lab in 2013, he has helped incorporate more layers of hands-on teaching and judging methodology to the
coursework and judging team experiences at GCCC. Dr. Alexander has a wide range of
expertise in evaluation of all red-meat carcasses with an estimated count of over 1 million head
of beef, pork, lamb and goat carcasses that he has evaluated in his judging and coaching career.


He has created several indexes that can be used to evaluate and rank all types of carcasses that
determine the best combinations of quality and yield grades within species.


He is an active member of the American Meat Science Association, including the President of
the Intercollegiate Meat Coaches Association Board in 2019 and is a current A-division director
on the board. Dr. Alexander also holds industry certifications from the International HACCP
Alliance (program and lead instructor) and Beef Quality Assurance.