It’s fair season in the Midwest. I grew up in 4-H and now get the privilege of watching my nieces and nephews participate in it.
We watched the beef show recently at their county fair. Growing up, we didn’t do the “show” animals. We picked a steer and pigs out of our herd and took them. The same is true for my sister’s kids. We did the work with the animals and they do too.
My niece just turned 13 and has been taking steers for a few years. She does a great job working with her calf so she’s not scared of him and is fully in charge. While her parents are present and ready to help when needed, she’s the one doing the work. She takes care of him. And has put lots of hours in through the hot summer preparing him for the fair.
Like us growing up, we never expected top honors in the market class. We were proud of our calves and the cattle herd they came out of, but never quite had them finished right. The same of hers. Her steer actually came from my parents herd as well. She picks which one she wants to take based on how gentle they are, not necessarily that they are the best market pick.
At our county fair, they do market classes first, then showmanship, then breeding heifers. She did great showing in the market class, but didn’t make it to the top of her class.
Then comes showmanship. She is in the middle-age level. So while filling out the forms she had to complete for intent to sell, she comes in to the stand with us to watch the senior showman show and listen to the critiques the judge gave them. Then she went and got her calf, Christmas, and they crushed it. She stared a hole through the judge, which is just what he said he wanted; she knew the answers to the questions he asked about her calf, and she did a great job.
Yet she wasn’t chosen out of her class to come back to the final consideration.
Maybe we’re biased, but we felt like she did everything right. There were some other kids in her class that did the right things too. And they weren’t chosen either.
The thing here is, on the 4-H scale all the way to some of the Olympic sporting events, it often comes down to one person’s (or perhaps a small group of people’s) opinion on one certain day. It’s a lesson that is not fun to watch in real time as a 13-year-old learns. She came back to the stands, disheartened. She didn’t know what she did wrong. It’s hard watching a judge choose the calf he chose as grand champion market calf as the showmanship finalist. Just because you have a good looking calf doesn’t mean she’s showing it well.
It’s hard as an adult listening to a child be frustrated and upset. It’s hard watching the finalist immediately get to the gate leading out of the ring and throw the halter lead to her mom and get out of the way. We knew, and she knows, the kids that take care of the animals versus the animals that are being taken care of by parents and the kids just go in the ring. It’s hard watching her learn about unfairness in life.
But it is a lesson that we learn.
At the county fairs that I’m speaking about, there are no rules about how many shows these animals can go to, no limit to how much money can be spent on an animal, nothing stated about not having calves in a cold box so they grow the hair, nothing that says parents can’t take animals to water or wash them or fit them. Just as in all aspects of life, people believe in different things and have different values. I’m not a part of a “professional” show family. We believed in raising quality cattle that kept our small family farm afloat. Just because it worked for us doesn’t mean it works for others.
While it’s hard watching her learn that lesson from the bleachers at a beef show, I’m confident of the young woman she’s becoming. Life is hard and we’re all still learning lessons we don’t want to learn. But she knows, and we know, ribbons are nice, but they don’t truly matter — what matters is knowing where you’re going in the end and living the life God wants for you.
Kelsey Pagel is a Kansas farmer. She grew up on a cow/calf and row crop operation and married into another. Kelsey and her Forever (Matt) farm and ranch with his family where they are living their dream and loving most of the moments.
