FAR WEST TEXAS — Up-and-coming livestock raisers from 4-H clubs in Presidio and Marfa showed off their skills last week at the 76th Annual Big Bend Livestock Show & Sale.
The show started Thursday, January 9, and finished with a sale at the Alpine Civic Center on Saturday, January 11. Several kids from Marfa and Presidio had raised lambs. Alexa Baeza, a sophomore at Presidio High School, won the reserve grand championship in the medium-wool division after exhibiting her medium-wool lambs at the event. Brissa Baeza, a fourth grader at Presidio Elementary, likewise placed second in her class for medium-wool lambs.
Eduardo Flores III, an eighth grader at Lucy Rede Franco Middle School, showed goats in the lightweight and heavyweight divisions. He placed seventh in heavyweight. Annaka Salcido, a seventh grader at Marfa Junior High School, also showed off medium-wool lambs and placed third in her class.
Matlin Sain, county extension agent in Presidio County for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, gave the four contestants advice on animal rearing before the show and helped them keep their goats and lambs healthy. As a county extension agent, Sain helps agriculturalists with everything from keeping their chickens alive to preventing apple trees from freezing.
Or it can mean helping 4-H Kids raise their animals — a task Sain describes as her favorite part of the job.
“I’m really proud of them for getting out there,” she said of the Presidio County contestants. “There’s a lot of responsibility to be learned when you raise an animal and then show it. It takes courage.”