As St. Joseph County 4-H Fair ends, kids raising livestock repeat bittersweet ritual

SOUTH BEND — Ava Carrico squatted near a metal fence, brought her head up to a gap and met face to snout with a 276-pound pig.

Carter — the pig — licked Ava’s chin and cheeks as she giggled. Ava grabbed either side of Carter’s head and leaned in.

The last Friday at the annual St. Joseph County 4-H Fair is always bittersweet for young people like Ava, who’s 18 and enrolled to study at Indiana University South Bend this fall.

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The carnival rides and the fatty fair food drew about 68,000 people to the fairgrounds over a nine-day stretch that ended Saturday. But beyond the main attractions are pungent, hay-covered barns full of cows, goats, rabbits, turkeys, chickens, ducks and pigs to which dozens of children have devoted months of steady care.

Ava was 9 years old when she cared for her first pig. She got Carter earlier this year. She noticed how friendly and cute the pink and black crossbreed was when she first met him.

She guesses she’s raised some 30 pigs by now, during her 10 years in 4-H, but none have consistently kissed her the way Carter does.

“He responds to his name, so if you call him by Carter, if he’s not tired, he responds, he comes to you,” said Ava, a redhead whose freckles matched her hair. “He likes marshmallows, water and pretty much attention, overall.”

'I just go all into it'

But with Friday comes the auction, the big event for kids in 4-H, a century-old youth development program that offers a “four-square education” — head-heart-hands-health.

The kids have spent months feeding their animals every day, watching after them, hopping into a pen and playing around to form a bond. The process is what matters, but the payoff counts, too.

After showing their livestock in competitions throughout the week at the fair, many children have won various trophies and ribbons. All that’s left on Friday is to put on their nicest blue jeans and boots, display their animal to a ring of potential customers and make a sale.

“They’ve spent money on that animal, with feed, possible medical bills, housing, all that stuff,” said Andy Meyer, a member of the nonprofit board that organizes the fair. “Now they’re trying to get the return.”

“These kids,” he added, “they’re raising these animals on farms. This isn’t some big corporation making meat. This is a kid raising an animal and trying to get the best yield they can.”

Ava expected Carter to sell for around $5,500, she said. Chloe Horban, 13, sold a trio of five-pound rabbits for $500. Jared Flora, an 18-year-old longtime member, said he was offered $4,000 for a goat.

Many older kids use the hundreds or thousands of dollars they get from purchasing groups — the kids are responsible for attracting buyers, too — to help pay for college. Younger kids often buy new animals to raise for next year.

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Money aside, Ava gave a sad smile and looked down when she talked about parting ways with Carter and C.J., a smaller, less lively pig sleeping in some hay nearby. Carter may go to the slaughterhouse, which Ava would rather not consider. She held out hope for a different buyer.

She's done this year after year. She learns to be kind and gentle with a young pig, to help it grow comfortable in a new environment — her family farm in Lakeville. And every auction day, her attachment comes around to pain her.

She supposes it’s a good way to live, though.

“I realize I just go all into it,” she said of raising animals. “But I guess that’s the only way for me to get the whole experience.”

'Older kids helping the younger kids'

The adults who volunteer to organize 4-H events, most of whom as children raised their own animals, feel similarly wistful watching 10-year members like Ava perform for a final time.

Meyer, 52, said it raises the hair on his arms to think of the 10-year members graduating from the program. Kids can join 4-H at 8 years old.

The looming graduation of 10-year members had Stephanie Nelson, a member of the organizing board, pointing to her goosebumps and wiping her eyes behind her sunglasses. She sat in the shade with Amanda Gill, the parent of a seven-year member, as a group of young 4H-ers played kickball on a sunny lawn nearby.

Young kids start off “scared to go in the ring with their animal,” Gill said. “And now they’re showing other people’s animals that need help, or helping the pee-wees — just learning how to take charge.”

Meyer knows most of them will stay involved with 4-H, as he, a former 10-year member, has done. During the past week, Meyer spent time with a peer who raised animals alongside him, more than four decades after he joined 4-H in 1979.

Kids are playing to win, Meyer said, but they’re in community with one another.

“This is 4-H right here,” Meyer said, gesturing to Jared Flora as he helped his younger sister, Margaret, corral a pair of broiler chickens on a display table. “You have the older kids helping the younger kids.”

'There's never an endpoint'

Jared’s an exception in that neither of his parents, who grew up in South Bend neighborhoods, participated in 4-H.

A brawny blond who has no problem wrangling an 87-pound goat he raised, Jared’s a “first-generation 4H-er.” He’s been followed by three sisters — Margaret, Kathryn and Olivia — who also showed animals Friday.

Jared said his family has become almost addicted to breeding animals each year and betting which ones will grow big by auction day. There’s a thrill to finding good ones, he said, and then meticulously planning how best to showcase them before a judge.

But 4-H is more than that. As the Riley High School graduate ages out of the program and prepares to work as an electrician, he’s eager to come back next summer as a livestock coordinator. In the past few years, it’s become important to him to help younger kids improve and, eventually, outpace him as a showman.

“I think one of the most beautiful things, if you will, with 4H,” Jared said, “is that there’s never an endpoint.”

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Gill was recently talking with her daughter, who's almost 16 and will be done raising cows through 4-H in three years.

Gill asked her girl whether, once she finishes, the family can sell the heap of show halters and show leads and other 4H-related miscellany amassed over years of competition.

"She said, 'Oh no, mom,'" Gill said. "'You're going to put it in the loft in the barn, because I'm going to need it for my kids.'"

Contact South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at 574-235-6480 or JTsmith@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: St. Joseph County 4-H Fair ends with livestock auction