From stock show to fair, it’s a whirlwind ride

Stock shows, rodeo, and fair, yee-haw!

Having the Wharton County Youth Fair moved up a month this year so it runs directly after the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo really kicks things into high gear for all the FFA and 4-H kids involved in those events, not to mention their parents, teachers, and a certain bedraggled journalist trying to keep up with it all.

I know these kids are worn out and stressed to no end, but at the same time they love it and live for it. Like any annual season, you can’t wait for it to start and then you can’t wait for it to be over. It’s kind of like sports, you miss your favorite team during the off season and you relish the action during the season. By the end of the season you’re tired and ready for a break. But as soon as it’s over you’re ready for it to return.

For the Wharton County kids, the majors (Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston, etc.) are over and the WCYF is wrapping up this weekend. It’s an emotional time because animals that they have meticulously cared for the past year are gone. The kids have accomplished their goal, but there is a certain emptiness that goes with it. Parting with your project is like losing a friend.

Growing up in Colorado, my brothers and I participated in 4-H and showed our projects at the Boulder County Fair. My brothers did pigs, sheep, and calves. I did rabbits and bees. For two years in a row I had the reserve grand champion beekeeping display. I lost the championship both years to the same friend in our Hooves and Horns 4-H Club. (We were also the only ones to enter the competition, but we’ll keep the little nugget of information between us.)

I put most of my effort into my rabbits (we raised them by the hundreds), but I never placed any higher than fourth. I remember the time that I had my red satin all groomed and ready for show. I took him to the fairgrounds on a rainy day and as I removed his cage from the car, he got out, splashed in a mud puddle, and ran under my car where he got streaked with grease.

I know raising rabbits sounds wimpy and unglamorous compared to steers and such, but they were not easy and I still have the scars to show for it. At the end of the fair, my brothers came home with a wad of cash where their animals used to be. I came home with my rabbits and my fourth-place ribbons. They were relieved to not have to care for their projects anymore and I got to go out twice a day and feed mine – at least until we ate them.

My wife Sandy and I each grew up on hobby farms. It’s a part of our childhoods that we really miss and we are trying to get back into it. For more than a year now we have been looking for a place in the country suitable for our family and our goal of raising small animals and growing a big garden. We keep looking and praying and hoping someday God leads us to our agricultural paradise here in Texas. It’s all in his timing and we just have to trust him and the process.

In the meantime, I’m keeping busy covering the HLSR and WCYF. I love it, especially the rodeos and bull rides. I never learned to rope and ride, but I really respect those who do. It requires strength and skill on par with other world class athletes. The talents are underappreciated and the risks involved are high.

These athletes spend most of the year on the road, sleeping in cars, cheap motels, and crashing on couches just for the chance to earn a little cash and move on to the next event. It’s a hard life and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

The same could be said for the FFA and 4-H kids who put in the effort to raise their animals, going out at oh-dark-thirty to feed them, spending afternoons and weekends working with them, grooming them, mucking stalls, hauling hay and doing all that other unsung work just to have a moment or two to shine at the fair. From one who has done it to those who are doing it, keep up the good work. You’ll be a better person for it.

The values of caring, sacrifice, commitment, drive, and ambition can’t be overstated when it comes to raising animals and doing the hard work to finally get to that brief moment in the spotlight. We need new generations of farmers and ranchers and the skills you are learning and the habits you are forming will last a lifetime and hopefully produce some of finest agriculturalists this country has ever known. My hat’s off to you!

Joe Southern is the managing editor of the Wharton Journal-Spectator and the East Bernard Express. He can be reached at news@journal-spectator.com.