Hard work pays off for 4-H beef clubs

Members keep cool when animals sold

Members of 4-H are hard workers, and that ain't no bull.

Many 4-H members were showing off the results of a lot of their hard work in raising cattle at the 2004 Grant County Fair.

Louie Gans of Ephrata, with the Incredible Beef 4-H Club said that he has been a member of 4-H for about five years. He was showing off a cow and a calf for Registered Angus.

"You breed the cow in the spring and then she calves, pretty much again in the spring, and then once the calf gets out, you start working with it so you can train it and make it ready for fair and everything," Gans explained.

In order to prepare, Gans said one has to wash their cow, walk them around and give them lots of food.

"I'm just showing them just to show them," he said. "(Then) it goes back home. I keep them and then I just make a herd."

Gans said he has about six cows in his herds, and has been participating in the fair for about eight years.

Sarah King of Coulee City, also with Incredible Beef, was showing a steer.

"We had to buy the steer, then feed him and halter break him," she said. "Lead him and feed him … Just work them with a show stick and just get them ready for fair."

Unlike Gans, King is showing her steer for market, which means she'll sell it.

"I'm used to it now," she said, noting that she has participated in the fair for about nine or ten years. But she said she got attached to the animals she raised the first couple years.

Matt Garneau of Moses Lake, with O'Sullivan 4-H, said he has been a participant since he was about six with sheep, and has been bringing a cow for the last four or five years.

"I like doing it, it's fun," Garneau said. He too plans on selling his animal at market. "I'm going to sell him, they'll send him to a processing plant and butcher him."

Garneau said he gets a little attached to his animals, but tries not to.

Trevin Byington of O'Sullivan 4-H and Moses Lake has been with 4-H since he was nine. He will be 16 in September. He will sell his animal.

"I'm doing it so I can make money so I can go on a church mission," he said. "Some people just do it because it's fun and something to do."