Blood, Sweat, and Tears - What it Takes to Show in the Washington County Fair
Scrolling through photos looking for just the right one of the kids, I stop here. I stop at this show ring. All eyes on the kids and their animals, the culmination of months and months of demanding labor. But as the picture widens, it becomes clear the efforts have not solely been their own. Their stories, like most great stories, all began with helpers. Countless faces not pictured, countless names gone unmentioned.
Brothers, sisters, moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, friends, family friends, friends of family friends, neighbors, teachers, business owners, entire communities.
Brick by brick they’ve helped lay the path to these scorching summer days and starless smoky nights.
Club meetings after work, late night drives home to chores and ‘what’s for dinner.’ Hauling animals, hauling feed, and visiting vets. Record books, frustration, elation, exhaustion, laughs, and lots of tears.
Sultry sale barns, always the same faces, writing checks from accounts no more full than the next.
Volunteers, a precious group, giving hours on end from lives no less busy than our own.
Still they give freely.
It is an intense support system holding these kids up, pushing them forward, and picking them up when they fall. They do it because they know these crisp white shirts under blue corduroy and black pants over worn boots are trudging forward into a world lost to acute madness. They do it because they know that America needs them as much as they need us.
Remember this when considering supporting 4H and FFA Market Livestock Sales in the future, please!
