WILL B.

B.

Livestock Show

One of my very favorite events to cover and to enjoy each year is the Young County Junior Livestock Show. There are so many reasons why it’s one of my top events: one is I see it much like the 80’s movie, “The Breakfast Club.”

In the movie you had students from many different groups who are generally at odds with each other, or at the very least do not travel in the same social circle, come together one Saturday for punishment and endure a full day of detention together.

By the end of that day they grew close and formed bonds and left as friends. Very similar to the Junior Stock Show, you have students from all sects coming together for a three-day period and they become equals, friends and lose whatever social title they may hold and come out the other side better for it and with new friends and memories.

Students go into the Stock Show as cheerleaders, jocks, band geeks, outsiders and so on and over the course of a few days for some and a few months for others depending on their project, by the end of the Young County Junior Livestock Show[YCJLS] they lose these titles and just become ag students working on projects, they become brothers and sisters of a sort and throughout the journey that is the YCJLS.

This tight group of well-mannered and industrious students will make core memories, learn life skills, life lessons, grow up quite a bit, make lifelong friends and realize they can do and succeed at anything they put their minds to. I am so very proud of all these students, the teachers that guide them and all the friends and family who put in countless hours to help whenever possible.

I must single out one Olney FFA student particularly – Marlee Lane – whom I am most proud of because she was brave enough to take on the project of mental health for her steer project speech.

It is not a subject those in the ranch and farm community would broach in conversation often, but it is one that is very important because according to National Rural Health Association those in the farming industry are 3.5 times more likely to commit suicide.

Well done, Marlee! This is Will B saying, don’t be afraid to talk to someone you know about depression and suicide.