FFA students prep for show

Published 2:45 pm Monday, March 15, 2010

By Brenda Sexton

Staff writer

Sumner High School’s FFA program is preparing 62 projects – hogs, lambs and steers, to take down the road to Puyallup in April for the Northwest Junior Livestock Show and Sale.

Local Sumner and Bonney Lake area youth have been raising their project animals for months. It gives kids the chance to learn how to feed and care for a livestock project animal. They learn about nutrition, animal husbandry, how to groom an animal for show and how to compete in the show ring with their livestock.

The students spend three days competing with their livestock at the fair. On the final day, the market livestock are sold at a live auction. The kids are looking for buyers for their livestock.

The event is set for April 15-18 at the Western Washington Fairgrounds.

Buyers can participate in several ways. The first is the outright purchase of an animal for the buyer’s own freezer. By purchasing a hog, lamb or steer they can have it custom cut and wrapped by a local butcher shop and enjoy local high quality meat throughout the year. Larger animals like hogs and steers, can be cooperatively bought through the buyers committee in halves and quarters. The buyers committee can assist in co-coordinating with a local butcher shop and will also work with interested buyers to make purchases on their behalf.

All the livestock is involved in a quality assurance program and is processed by a USDA-approved facility.

A buyer also can support local kids through donations to the buyers committee. All proceeds go to support students who take their livestock to the show.

Chet Bates is heading up Sumner’s buyers committee and can be reached at 253-208-1753. Sumner High agriculture science teacher Rusty Finch is also a contact. He can be reached at Rusty_Finch@sumner.wednet.edu.

“Northwest-bred, locally-grown,” Finch said of the meat. “Anything above current market price is a tax write off.”