4-H students prepare for this year’s auction
Aaron Kendeall/Observer-Reporter Codi Georgetti leads her heifer to the dairy cow competition Thursday at Washington County Fair. Georgetti's family has many animals entered at the fair.
Brandon Janusey, 9, hugs his sheep, Nibbles, at the Washington County Fair.
It’s a tale as old as time – or at least as old as the county fair.
Every year, local 4-H students spend hot days and long nights raising, primping and, sometimes, spoiling farmyard animals just to be separated from them at the summer auction at the Washington County Fair.
This year’s auction will start at 10 a.m. Saturday at the fair’s show ring and dozens of boys and girls were caring for their prized livestock Thursday, looking forward to the event with a mixture of stoicism and sadness.
“It’s sad because that’s my first pig and I really like her,” 12-year-old Gabe Minor said of his year-old, 235-pound blue-butt hog, Ziggy. “When I scratch her belly, she’ll sit down like a dog and if you keep scratching she’ll flop over on her back.”
Although he has been raising animals since age 8, he was not looking forward to letting go of Ziggy-the-Piggy, a hog that he began to hand rear when she was just 65 pounds. A third-generation farmer who lives on his family’s farm on the property of the Spring House Restaurant, he is carrying on the family tradition – along with 11 of his cousins who are also involved in the 4-H program.
In addition to the fourth-place show ribbon he won for Ziggy, Minor would also bring home three blue ribbons and two best-of-show ribbons for the 3-year-old Holstein named Hostess.
Eric Putnak, 14, of Eighty Four, said the young farmers involved in the 4-H program learn valuable lessons about responsibility.
“A lot of time and effort goes into these animals,” Putnak said. “Come sale day, some people can’t handle letting them go, some people can. It’s a repeating process – it happens every year.”
This year, Putnak would show his cross-bred steer, pig and a breeding market-goat. He didn’t know what to expect from his animals, but at $15 per pound, a steer purchased last year by natural gas contractor Frac-Tech fetched him almost $4,000. Putnak said the money would go towards his college fund – and hopefully towards a truck – once he’s old enough to drive. The cow was eventually donated back to 4-H.
Youth competitions at the county fair are often a family affair. About a dozen members of the Schinkovec-Janusey family were gathered around their pen full of lambs, each of which would be shown at auction.
Brandon Janusey, 9, hugged his sheep, named Nibbles, as it bayed in its enclosure. But when asked how he was going to react to the loss of Nibbles, Janusey was unable to come up with words.
As his 18-year-old sister Breana Schinkovec, who was in her last year of 4-H eligibility, comforted him, she explained why losing your first animal is so hard.
“10 years ago, that night my lamb got sold, I spent the night in the barn crying,” Schinkovec said. “I was sad I lost my best friend but I had a year of memories with it. That was probably the beast and worse year of my life.”