Fair exhibitors learn to let go

Melrose High senior Kimberly Lyons showed five pigs during Tuesday’s junior market swine show at the Curry County Fair.

Lyons said she tries not to get as attached to her animals.

“Once you sell them, you know they’re going to get eaten,” said Lyons, who started showing animals in fourth grade. “My first few years I was really sad.”

The swine show was the first livestock show of the week. Poultry was also judged Tuesday. Dairy heifers, goats, lambs and rabbits are judged today, and steers on Thursday.

Animals that place in their division will be sold Friday in an auction.

“It’s a market animal. You judge it on marketability and condition,” said Melrose High senior Adam Hairgrove, who showed six pigs in Tuesday’s swine show. “You want them structurally correct with some fat, not a lot.”

Melrose High sophomore Kole Terry spent Tuesday clipping his steer, Scoops. Terry said he prepared all summer by rinsing and drying the steer in the morning and fogging him with conditioner and sheen, which repels dirt, in the afternoon.

“You work with them every day, morning and night,” said Terry, who has been involved in 4-H since he was 9. “You just got to let them go. It’s hard. I’ll let him go if I have to.”

Texico High junior Laiken Cris said she started competing in the livestock shows because her father got her involved. She and her two siblings entered 21 animals in this year’s fair.

“I met most of my best friends through showing animals,” Cris said after shaving her lamb, Brad. “I get very attached because you spend all summer with them and then we have to come here, and if we do good, we have to sell them.”

Cris said she has to shear her lambs, walk them and clean them in preparation for today’s show.

Schedule of events

Today — Dairy Day

Thursday — Special Needs Day

Friday — 4-H/FFA Day

Saturday — Youth and Pioneer Day

Today

8:30 a.m. — Booster Junior Replacement Dairy Heifer Show, Kevin Roberts Show Arena

9 a.m. — Junior Replacement Dairy Heifer Show, KRSA

10 a.m. — 10 p.m. — Agriculture and Home Arts exhibits open

2 p.m. — Junior Market Goat Show, KRSA

3 p.m. — Booster Lamb Show, KRSA

3:30 p.m. — Junior Market Lamb Show, KRSA

4 - 10 p.m. — Commercial exhibits open

5 p.m. — Rabbit Judging, rabbit barn

5 p.m. — Team Roping, Mounted Patrol Arena

5 p.m. — Midnight — Carnival open. Hero’s Night, $5 off wrist band with appropriate police, firefighter, military ID

6 p.m. — 4-H, FFA Poultry Released, Poultry and Rabbit Barn

6 p.m. — Little Buckaroo Rodeo, grass show ring

6:30 p.m. — Shawn Gregory, midway area

7 p.m. — Ken Whitener, food court dance area

7:30 p.m. — Shawn Gregory, midway area

8 p.m. — Extreme Canines Show

8:30 p.m. — Shawn Gregory, midway area

9 p.m. — Ken Whitener, food court dance area

10 p.m. — Extreme Canines Show, grass show ring