History of Premiership in CFA

February 19, 2026

And Other Interesting Tidbits!

Chai Wuttivorrvattana

 

In the history of The Cat Fanciers’ Association, there are only three catteries that have earned the distinct recognition of achieving the “Triple Crown,” by winning Best Championship Cat of the Year (COTY), Best Kitten of the Year (KOTY), and Best Premiership Cat of the Year (POTY). They are Jadon, Velvetkist, and Briar-Mar. While both Jadon and Velvetkist have achieved that special honor in longhair breeds with Persians, Briar-Mar is alone in shorthairs with Manx.

Currently, Cacao cattery is the only single/individual cattery to reach “Cattery of Distinction” at the Tier IX level by producing 300 Grand Champions/Grand Premiers. Registered in 1971, the first Grand Champion title came in 1978 with GC Cacao Essence Rare, a tortie point Himalayan Persian. What an outstanding accomplishment!

According to the CFA historian (a writer behind the “I AM CFA” bios on Facebook, former CFA Allbreed judge, and current CFA off-site staff member), Karen Lawrence told me there is no history explaining how “Premiership” was established as the name for the pedigreed neuter/spay class. Even though CFA was established in 1906, it was not until 1959 that the Premiership class was recognized as a show category. One can only imagine how many spayed and neutered cats were shown in the 1959-1960 season. The first record Karen could find for a Grand Premier title came from the 1962-1963 season: Grand Premier Ping’s Coffee Royale of Cardell, a Burmese neuter owned by Carole Del Vecchio of Cohasset, MA.

In those earlier days, CFA showcased the Hydon-Goodwin All-Star Challenge Awards, given to various categories, but usually by color class. Winners were listed in the CFA Yearbook for the color/breed awards, but only showing the owners’ names, and no photos were included. Eventually, the yearbook listed the top five males and top five females, and later added Best Cat and Best Opposite Sex Cat as well as Best and Best Opposite Sex in the longhair and shorthair categories of Kittens, Championship, and Premiership. There were also the All-American Awards (all shows, all associations), scored by Cats Magazine, until CFA broke from those and created its own scoring system. The system to establish CFA National and Regional winners for all classes began in 1971, with Top 10 cats in Championship and Top 5 Kittens, with no Premiership awards. The following year expanded Championship to 20, keeping Kittens the same and offering Premiership at 5. It was a few years before those categories all began to change with increasing entries, bringing Kittens to Top 15, as was the case as late as the 1990-1991 show season. Ultimately, the current Top 25 in all categories (including Household Pets) became the norm, but now with point minimums required.

“You are all so spoiled now!” Karen exclaimed. She is referring to the era of the greatest inventions from the past three decades: computer, cell phone, and the internet. She told me that there was a time when no breed summaries were available prior to each show. You did not know who was competing unless a lot of phone calls were made. All entries and confirmations were submitted and confirmed by traditional mail or fax. Scoring was not made public, and you could only hope that your cat received a national or regional title, which was only confirmed by mail after the end of the show season. The next stage was CFA offering an e-points system by fax available through a subscription service, and eventually a paid service by email. “Once the internet was well established, we finally were able to drag CFA into the 20th century!”

Prior to CFA embracing such technologies, the Cat Fanciers’ Almanac was the magazine that printed official show counts and results. It was published monthly starting in 1984 and changed to semimonthly until the last issue, dated Oct/Nov 2007. In the mid-1970s, Donna Fuller became a scoring guru, keeping track of various shows and running point spreads on large, green bar tractor-feed paper via dot matrix printers. Then came other smaller publications such as Score Sheet by Vicki Dickerson Nye, Cat Tab, etc. Karen also added another interesting fact: For a certain period of time, nobody knew for sure just where their cat placed in the national rankings until it was announced at the Awards Banquet. How nerve-wracking would that be? “And the winner of Best Cat in Premiership goes to…”

Indeed, we have been spoiled. Now we are in a social media era which certainly brings everything closer to us in seconds with just a few clicks of the fingertip. We eagerly await show reports from the Unofficial CFA Show Results Facebook page, as provided by Noelle Giddings, J’aime Lerner, and a few others who donate their personal time to make it happen. We can also see cats spotlighted, showing their unique personalities in the show ring by browsing through video collections created by New Vision Cat Club on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. What might be next? We sure need to be ready to embrace those changes, as that is how a community grows to a better future for its members.

I consider these colorful individuals to be part of my growth and journey into this great community. Sometimes we take things for granted, forget how far we have come together to build a nonprofit organization such as CFA, and how many obstacles we had to sacrifice to make it a prestigious entity today. That is why it is essential to study history; learn from knowledgeable members; pay respect; contribute; and, most importantly, adapt to any changes, which are inevitable. Having fun while doing all of this is a plus.

 

After all, it is not just “We Are CFA Premiership,” but “WE ARE CFA!”