Jennifer Gardner
Staff Writer
The 46th annual Walter Gerlach Livestock Show and Sale showcased the talents of dedicated Agriculture and FFA students including over 800 entries.The event ran from January 21-26 and raised scholarship money for the participants.
“It was very successful.We had over a million dollar sale. Currently, it looks like we may be on track to top last year’s sale. Extremely successful. [Gerlach] helped a lot of kids out for scholarship money and that kind of stuff so they can continue on with the program,” FFA coordinator Bryan Hawkins said.
Every year students raise pigs, goats, chickens, lambs, and steers all in hopes to place and hopefully make enough profit to account for the costs going into taking care of their animals.
“It’s threatening to feel [like] you’re not gonna place. It’s disappointing but otherwise it’s fine,” freshmen Elizabeth Curtis said.
Junior Kylie White, with multiple years of animal raising under her belt, had
her Pig named Gazzy placed eleventh in the light heavyweight class and won over $1950 in scholarship funds from auction.
“The one thing I can advise is [that] the show shouldn’t be the only goal you have in your head. If you’re taking part in the meat industry it is your responsibility to love that animal and give them the best life possible. It breaks my heart to see these kids that won’t even open their pen, throwing the feed over the edge of the railing and hitting their animal in the face with it rather than [having it go] into a bowl for them. So just keep in mind these animals, though their end purpose may be to feed a community, love ‘em. Because trust me, they will love you back,” White said.
Students shared that one of the most nerve-racking parts of Gerlach is having judges come to assess and critique their animals and the work they’ve put into them to show the animal in the best form possible.
“Having the judge come to you and look at your animal is scary because you don’t know if your animal is good enough or [if] the judge will say something like critical of your animal,” junior Cassidy Wheeler said.
These students devote their time, effort, money, blood, sweat, and tears in order to prepare the best they can for the Gerlach auction held on the last Saturday of January almost every year.
“Well, you don’t really start preparing for Gerlach right when it’s around the corner. Even from the first moment you get your animal you’re preparing for Gerlach.You’re meticulously training them tracking their food giving them lots of kisses and belly rubs. Everything you do to give that animal a happy life is also in preparation for this show,” White said.
They spend a little less than 8 months working on training their animals to follow their directions and make sure that they reach a good healthy weight and muscle mass. At the end of the auction, those animals go off on trailers to different states for whatever market they sell best in.
“[The] animals can go to a a number of different places. For instance lambs and goats they normally don’t stay around here in Texas they usually go off to the East Coast.Very very popular for lamb and goat meat in the East Coast. The guy who bought all the pigs takes them to California. It just depends upon what’s breeded in what species it is,” Hawkins said.
A difficult part of Gerlach is when the students have to give their final farewells to the animals they had spent months nurturing and caring for so long. Hawkins shared that while there are tears shed the day the animals are loaded up onto the trailer it does get easier for the students as they get more experienced with the Gerlach process. The time that these kids put into their animals and the evident care they show them is a testimony of the love they develop for them and the memories they carry on for the rest of their lives.
“If they’re giving back to you by giving their lives give them all of yourself. Because I could go in there not loving my animal and have a miserable experience waiting until it’s finally over or I can go in there take a million pictures of my little baby and love him until the day I say goodbye,” White said.
The Gerlach auction does not work in the same manner as one would think a normal auction would operate.The buyers don’t win the animal but instead, win the satisfaction of helping students continue on with the FFA program.
“[The buyers] get the privilege of knowing they donated their money to an organization that’s building well-rounded students who are going off and being successful and being community oriented,” Hawkins said.
Phipps.