FORMER Gympie student Chloe Gould has been judged the best before.

But now the rising cattle industry star, named best young parader of the recent Gympie Show, has been judged best for judging best.

The former Gympie High student is in the final year of her agricultural science studies at the University of Queensland's Gatton campus.

The studies include judging meat quality and she won a major award in the Australian Intercollegiate Meat Judging competition and conference in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

Named this year's individual champion, she said she was also delighted her university won the champion team award overall.

Three Queensland students made the top 10, putting them in the running to represent Australia in the American competition.

She gives all the credit to others, however, especially her old school and its agricultural training courses, along with Gympie export processor Nolan Meats, which sponsored high school level of the meat judging competition.

Nolans will also host this year's high school judging at the East Deep Creek meat processing plant.

"I think it's really important that we show appreciation not only to Gympie State High School's Agricultural Department but also our local business Nolan Meats," she said.

Nolans has been a powerfully encouraging force in meat industry training, as host of the schools competition and a past sponsor of Chloe's university level group, the University of Queensland's Intercollegiate Meat Judging Team.

Since graduating from high school, Chloe has regularly revisited the school competition to help run and judge the event which helped get her started in what is shaping up to be a brilliant career.

"It's great to see the number of school students interested in agriculture and the Australian meat industry," she said.

Chloe's win was part of a historic victory for the University of Queensland, which had never before had a team winning first place in the competition.

It was a narrow win from the University of Sydney, which was only seven points behind Chloe's team, which scored 4306 points out of a possible 5020. Murdoch University took third place.