I’ll admit by the end of Saturday night I was a bit tired. Between myself, Paul and our freelance photographer Danielle Meador, we had the honor of photographing about 989,000 animals at the Erath County Junior Livestock Show.
Just kidding. There weren’t that many animals but it surely felt like it.
In reality, the newly-erected barn held 1,188 entries with 430 kids competing over a span of six days.
I personally had the honor of photographing the steer and breeding cattle show. I admit being a girl from an oil town in the panhandle, I don’t know a lot about cattle other than it tastes great.
Mainly during the show I would simply cheer for the cattle that I thought were handsome or the kids I knew were from Dublin and Lingleville.
The more I photographed, the more inspired I got. It was evident that parents, grandparents, school district employees were all there for one reason ... to cheer on their kids in the world of agriculture.
When Saturday night’s Sale of Champions rolled around I couldn’t believe how many people had flooded the new barn.
The livestock show was a premium sale. meaning people essentially made a donation to the kids, allowing them to keep their animals for shows such as Ft. Worth Stock Show while allowing them to recoup some of the costs of raising an animal.
There were lots of highlights for me during the show but seeing a community come together on behalf of the kids and their animals isn’t something I will soon forget. Agriculture in general is a topic that Erath County doesn’t take lightly and I’m so honored that I get to learn about it. And I’m not ‘kid’ing.
-Wyndi Veigel is the content editor for the Citizen and can be reached via email at composing@ dublincitizen. com.