SAN BENITO — Along with their finest boots, buckles and collared shirts, participants added face masks to their attire at this year’s annual livestock show.
Students from Cameron and Willacy County high schools will showcase close to 200 hogs today starting around 10:30 a.m. at the Tip-O-Tex District FFA Livestock Show.
The livestock show is being held in San Benito at the Sonny Brazil Agriculture Complex located on the grounds of the Veterans Memorial Academy.
The Tip-O-Tex Livestock Show is described by organizers as a benchmark for upcoming major stock shows, such as the San Antonio, Houston and Rio Grande Valley Livestock Shows.
The two-day livestock show kicked off on Thursday with the showcasing of lambs, goats and cattle.
“The show has been awesome. We’ve had a good turnout,” San Benito Schools Career and Technical Education (CTE) Director Fernando Rosa said. “Everybody is practicing social distancing and we try to take every precaution that we can, make it as safe as possible and still have a good time.”
According to organizers, students’ participation in the livestock show strengthens their leadership and showmanship skills, as well as decision-making.
Students’ livestock are judged based on body conformation and structural soundness.
“It takes a lot of work to take care of these animals,” Rosa said. “They put in an outrageous amount of time feeding, cleaning and taking care of them.”
Audience participation is limited due to established COVID-19 health and safety protocols, however, San Benito CISD’s KSBG TV is live streaming the event.
“You can watch from the comfort of your home,” Rosa said. “We wanted to be able to at least show something for our parents that couldn’t make it. A lot of our parents work during the day, but I got some texts and some calls saying thank you for live streaming it because they got to see their child work with their goat or their lamb. It was nice to get that response.”
According to Rosa, this year’s livestock show is certainly different, but it’s been put together thanks to a team effort.
“That’s the only way we can do something like this,” he said. “When everybody works together for a common goal and I think that we have such a great group here in the Rio Grande Valley, that when you put something like this together and everybody comes together, it works.”
To view the livestock show, visit San Benito Schools CTE Facebook page at www.facebook.com/sbscte .
