Champion disqualified; family sues

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SPRINGFIELD (AP) - Mongo the steer is now Mongo the steak, but his case lives on in a lawsuit against officials who took away the animal's championship ribbon at the Illinois State Fair. Officials ruled during the fair that Mongo's owners had given him banned medicine to treat a sore foot. They stripped him of his ribbon and gave the prize - and the thousands of dollars it generates - to the runner-up. Whitney Gray, Mongo's teenage owner, accuses the state Agriculture Department of failing to follow its own procedures for publishing the rules for livestock exhibitors at the fair. Her lawsuit asks that Mongo's disqualification be reversed, the fair rules be declared invalid and the Grays be reimbursed for legal costs and any other costs the court deems appropriate. "She's entitled to the title, the ribbons and the money," attorney Carl Draper said. The Grays live in the Iroquois County town of Gilman. Every year, the fair features an auction of the top animals raised by teen competitors. The grand champion steer sells for thousands of dollars. The record is $37,500, and the steer that replaced Mongo sold for $21,500. The Agriculture Department, which has asked to have the lawsuit dismissed, stands by its handling of the situation. "The whole matter was unfortunate. However, the administration of the medication to Mongo was a clear violation of the competition rules. In order to protect the integrity of the Junior Steer Show, the department had no other choice," spokesman Jeff Squibb said. Mongo, a 1,294-pound Maine-Anjou steer who has since been slaughtered, was stripped of his title after a urine sample confirmed the presence of Banamine, an anti-inflammatory drug that had been used to treat the animal's sore foot. The medicine could help the animal in competition by, for instance, keeping it from limping in front of judges. The Banamine paste was administered to Mongo on the fairgrounds without the approval of the state veterinarian's office. State fair rules say animals can't be given medicine without the veterinarian's approval. Whitney Gray and her mother, Sue, appealed the fair's ruling, but an administrative law judge upheld the disqualification. The Grays then took their case to Agriculture Director Chuck Hartke, who also ruled that Mongo should be stripped of his title. The State Fair has cut back on the number of rulebooks it prints. Draper said Gray tried repeatedly to get copies of the rules at her local Cooperative Extension office and off the Internet but that downloading the rules was impossible on a dial-up system because the file was so large.