MERCEDES — For Morgan Thomas, the care of her animals comes before her own. That care paid off yesterday when the Lyford High School senior’s grand champion steer Atlantis sold at auction for $25,000 at the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show.
“Their care comes before yours,” she said. “You don’t eat before your steers eat, and you make sure that they’re fine before you care for yourself because in the end you’re responsible for them. “They depend on you for everything, and you need to be able to keep up your end of the bargain.”
Atlantis was one of the crowd’s favorites at the Livestock Show’s Sale of Champions.
It was the right investment, Thomas said. Her family, which feeds between 16 and 18 steers every year, had a hard decision to make.
“My dad gave us an ultimatum, ‘Do you all want to go to Atlantis on vacation or get another steer,’” she said.
“We picked another steer, and we think we did pretty good because we won with him.”
For the rest of this story and many other EXTRAS, go to our premium site, www.MyValleyStar.com.
Subscribe to it for only $6.99 per month or purchase a print subscription and receive the online version free, which includes an electronic version of the full newspaper and extra photo galleries, links and other information you can’t find anywhere else.