Aug 14, 2021 5 min read

When 19-year-old Staci Kmetz made her way into the Fayette County Fair’s 4-H Livestock Auction last week, she wanted to make memories to replace the ones she’d lost after an accident two years ago.

The Perryopolis woman and her grand champion lamb “Foxtrot” also made fair history.

Thanks to the generosity of 180 donors across 15 states, Foxtrot sold for a record $215 per pound – shattering the fair’s $90 per pound record.

But her journey to becoming a record holder has been a difficult one, Kmetz said.

Two years ago, she was at the fair unloading lambs from the back of a truck when one lunged forward and tried to jump out. As she tried to stop it, the lamb kicked her in the side of the temple. Kmetz fell off the bed of the truck and onto the concrete below.

“I shook it off like nothing happened, continued my day, did my presentation to about 500 fourth-graders and went home,” she said.

The second day was a different story.

“On my way to the fairgrounds, I started getting double, triple vision, dizziness and a super bad migraine,” she said.

She went to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with a minor concussion and sent home. In the days that followed, Kmetz realized something was still wrong and sought treatment at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. There, they found swelling of her brain.

By the next morning, she didn’t know her mother and brother.

“I relearned my name from the hospital bracelet on my wrist,” she said.

Kmetz couldn’t remember anything from her childhood, and lost the ability to talk and walk. She was diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury, Functional Neurological Disorder and Cortical Vision Impairment.

The only cure and treatment is time.

“The brain is a very sensitive muscle that takes years and years to heal,” she said.

As she began the road to recovery, her brother Dalton continued to tend to her 4-H lambs. On good days, he carried her to the barn to work with them too, Kmetz said.

She had a setback in April 2020, when she collapsed getting out of bed because she’d lost control of her legs. She now requires crutches.

“If you take them away from me, I am on the ground instantly,” Kmetz said.

She also had a speech regression in March, making her words come out of her mouth with a lot of S’s and Z’s. She joked that she sounds like “the hot Swedish girl.”

“My brain knows the correct words that I am saying, but when they are articulated they just come out a little mispronounced,” she said.

Through all of her struggles, she kept a goal in mind: to show a grand champion lamb at the fair.

To do that, she contacted Beatty’s Club Lambs, a livestock farm in Indiana County.

Greg and Jamie Beatty were touched by Kmetz’s handwritten letter telling them this was her last year in 4-H because of her age, and she’d hoped to have a grand champion and recreate many of the fair memories she’d lost as a result of the accident.

They found the perfect lamb for her to show, and had her show it in different venues to give her some extra time and experience.

“She wanted to prove to everyone else and to herself she can do it,” Jamie Beatty said.

The couple was so inspired by her that they took to Facebook, posting Kmetz’s story. They hoped to raise $14,000 by purchasing the 140-pound lamb at $100 per pound. The fundraising took on a life of its own, and it went from the Beattys reaching out for donors, to donors reaching out to them.

With the help of some friends in the audience to bid against them, the Beattys watched Kmetz as the price continued to climb.

“People were excited when it got to $100 and then $160 – it was really, really exciting to get there,” Jamie Beatty said. “She (Kmetz) got pretty emotional pretty fast.”

“I was in total shock standing in that ring, listening to the auctioneer ramble off the numbers back and forth, back and forth,” Kmetz said.

The grand total raised to purchase the grand champion was $30,100, and the Beatty’s gave “Foxtrot,” who’d become a sort of best friend to Kmetz, back to her.

“Throughout my entire journey I have learned a lot about people and how caring and generous people truly are and that there is still good out there in the world,” Kmetz said.

With new memories of the fair now in her head and heart, Kmetz said she will continue to forge ahead with her recovery, doing so with laughter and faith.

“I just have to be patient with God as everything is on his time, and the brain needs extended time to heal,” she said. “You may struggle daily but keep striving forward, never give up, trust on those supporting you, and always take control of your situation; never let it control your life.”