Local youth show at West Texas Fair
By Sam Waller
Albany FFA members earned high placings with their livestock entries last week at the West Texas Fair and Rodeo. Several more will be entering the show ring this week.
Gracie Price placed first in the Other Registered Breeds heifer class with her Maine-Anjou heifer. She also placed sixth in the class with her Chianina heifer.
Myleigh Leveridge placed third in the Breeding Shorthorn heifer class.
Donald McCullough placed second and fifth with his entries in Breeding Rabbits, while Judson Rogers had the third- and fourth-place entries in the same class.
Exhibiting market goats were Tara Cauble, Lyla Early, Willa Early, and Hattie Fikes.
Kolt Koemel participated in the calf scramble on Saturday, Sept. 10.
Briley Tabor will compete in the scholarship calf scramble Thursday, Sept. 15 (tonight).
Coming up on Saturday, Sept. 17, local exhibitors will show steers and hogs. In addition to Price and Leveridge, Hattie Braly, Kenzie Neve, and Madailein Beard have steers entered. Tatum Grady, Callan Edgar, Paige Price, and Emily Schedule have entries in the swine show.
On Monday, Sept. 12, the Albany FFA livestock judging team of Leddie Leech, Gracie Price, Laithe Leech, Callan Edgar, Kenzie Neve, Koy Cauble, Abi Hale, and Madailein Beard competed in a practice contest, judging eight classes of animals and handling three question classes.
“We normally don’t have livestock judging in the fall,” Albany FFA adviser Chris Beard said. “We’re trying to go to as many as we can to round the team out and get ready for the spring.”
Beard said the students scored well in the event.
“The kids scored really high on their class scoring where they place animals,” he said. “They’re still working on the question classes. I was pretty enthusiastic about the results.”
In addition to the livestock entries, about a half dozen Shackelford County 4-H members are entered in other contests at the fair.
“We had a few enter art projects from the summer art club in the Creative Arts division, and a few younger ones that are in both 4-H and FFA,” Shackelford County extension agent Kelsey Bell said.
Those winners were not yet available and will be reported next week, along with other Fair results.
