MERCEDES — Randall Olivarez leaned over his hog, expertly tapping him with a show stick as the judged watched him and the other contestants in the arena.
Moments later … “Yes! Alright!” and vigorous applause rushed into the air as Randall, 10, received the blue ribbon for his division Thursday at the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show.
“We put a lot of work into it, and it paid off,” said Randall, a fifth grader at Rio Hondo Middle School and member of the FFA.
The livestock show invited visitors to another full day of activities with a strolling clown, the Robinson Chainsaw Carver Act and a performance by a Comedy Hypnotist.
Judges rewarded the hard work of students with their red and gray Brahman cattle, their showmanship abilities with their market lambs, and several breeds of hogs.
The dynamic of the hogs filling the arena varied sharply from the shows of the lambs and the goats and the cattle.
The hogs moved like power packs of bulging muscle close to the ground and with a somewhat alarming intensity that commanded both apprehension and respect, not only for the animals but for the students in charge.
The students tapped the animals with a silent “rat-ta-tat-tat” that served as sort of a well-rehearsed Morse code to direct their hogs. The hogs easily outsized and outweighed their owners, making their skilled control even more impressive.
Many students have observed that judging can be somewhat arbitrary and relative to the individual judge’s inclinations.
I am happy for her. She worked hard for it. It took a lot of time and effort.
Alayna Rodriguez, 17, experienced that first hand with her hog, which took two grand championships earlier this week but fourth place in Thursday’s division contest.
“I was fourth out of 20, so that’s pretty good,” said Alayna, a senior at Robert Vela High School and a member of both 4-H and FFA.
She had spent long hours preparing her hog for the show.
“I walked him to make sure he stands loose on his legs,” said Alayna, who has participated in livestock shows for seven years.
Her father David Guajardo was pleased with his daughter’s success this last year of high school.
“I am happy for her,” he said. “She worked hard for it. It took a lot of time and effort.”
Livestock show as a family tradition is a common occurrence, and Randall’s family serves as a fine example of this.
His first experience with livestock show came while helping his brother Gustavo Olivarez Jr. and his sister Lilyana Olivarez with their animals. His siblings are now students at Texas A&M University in College Station, but their expertise and experience is alive and well in Randall.
“I fed him every morning and bathed him everyday and oiled him to make the hair stand out,” he said.
His father Gustavo Olivarez appreciated the impact FFA has had on his children.
“I can tell you the FFA program in Rio Hondo has taken my kids on a good path,” he said. “It has exposed them to a very professional environment.”
His youngest son’s success pleased him.
“I am proud of him because it was a lot of long hours put into it,” he said.
In all things worthwhile, though, there was a difficulty.
“In the beginning, it’s hard to get them to walk,” he said. “But my son was happy to get to do it. We came together as a team.”
Hailey Contreras, 17, and her 12-year-old sister Miah Dolan also see livestock show as a family activity.
As Hailey and her hog “Zazu” returned to the pens after taking first place for its dark cross division, friends, relatives and teachers greeted her with smiles, embraces and congratulations.
Hailey, a senior in Edcouch-Elsa High School’s FFA program, said she was a little nervous going into the arena.
“I know what he’s capable of, so I was pretty happy with him,” Hailey said. “The last few weeks I worked him a lot at the barn at school.”
The biggest challenge, she said, was getting Zazu up to weight.
“That made it very exciting and very challenging,” she said. “The last few weeks were very stressful.”
Her sister, Miah, also took home a blue ribbon for her division, and fittingly, their pens were next to each other.
“I feel good about it, it’s nervous going in there,” said Dolan, a sixth grader at David Ybarra Fine Arts Academy and member of the Edcouch-Elsa FFA.
You’ve just got to work hard at every one of them. There are so many components that go into a good project that I think it’s important to give every one of them 100 percent of your ability.
Students and their animals came from places far away and near. From the Upper Valley came Wyatt Robbins, 13, and his brother Levi, ten. Wyatt has a history of success in livestock shows, and this year was no different.
“I started off this week with the junior breeding goat show and I won that show,” said Wyatt, an eighth-grader at Sharyland North Junior High School and member of Sharyland Pioneer FFA.
“I went on the next day to get champion showmanship,” he said. “Then, I went ahead and showed my sheep, got third place with my final lamb, and today I won champion Hampshire hog.”
Wyatt presented himself with a mature and polished professionalism, which reflected years of discipline and responsible action. He certainly offered a fine example for his brother Levi, who’d just taken second place with his goat.
Wyatt’s evident capacity for attending to numerous projects showed a mental and emotional dexterity that would take him to many places.
“You’ve just got to work hard at every one of them,” he said. “There are so many components that go into a good project that I think it’s important to give every one of them 100 percent of your ability.”
Wyatt’s five years in livestock show have given him the chance to build an embedded work ethic within him and to develop his own mottos regarding that ethic.
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” he said.
Friday brings one of the most anticipated events of the livestock show, the judging of steers and selection of the grand champion steer.
