9-year-old city kid has champion moo

MILWAUKEE, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A 9-year-old Milwaukee boy who learned about cows from television is the reigning Wisconsin mooing champion after taking first place at the State Fair.

"I was playing a farm game with my friends on the bus, and I was the cow and I just made it," Tony Capla told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

This week, Tony makes his third national television appearance. He is to be featured on the Fox Network "Fox & Friends" morning show Thursday.

After coming in second in 2007 and 2008, Tony beat out more than 80 rivals this summer to take the top spot, winning $1,000 and a jacket in a Holstein-coat print complete with a tail. Many of the other mooers had grown up on farms and spent years listening to live cows.

He also does a good lion impression and three species of dinosaurs, although the accuracy of those vocalizations is impossible to check.

Tony's prowess is more remarkable because he was diagnosed with brain cancer at 4 and has had two rounds of brain surgery. His mother, Crystal Capla, said the tumor has stopped growing.

"It's made him appreciative of a lot of simple things in life," his father, also named Tony, said.