Dear FFA Supporter,

Hello, my name is Jordan Larson. I am contacting you to let you know that even though there is no county fair this year, the AgFest will still be held! Close to 1000 FFA and 4-H animal projects will be showing for a chance to earn those blue ribbons. I hope to be one of them!

I am a freshman at Tokay High. It was a busy year for me. I spent past year’s homeschooling so I could focus on training full time in men’s gymnastics. Returning to public school this year, I wanted to take that opportunity to be active in all that I could. I started wrestling for the first time this year for the school and was able to earn my Letter with the varsity team. My teammates, coaches and the sport have become my second family. I also gave pole vaulting a try during track season. I was able to Letter in this event and had a personal best of 10'6''. Unfortunately, I had some bad luck this year too, injuring my knee at a wrestling tournament, requiring surgery. (Hence the knee brace in the photo) This has left me laid-up to heal for six months, but allowed my attention to shift back to my school’s FFA program.

This has also been my first year as a member of FFA, but I'm no stranger to the responsibilities of raising animals. I have spent all of my youth on our small family ranch with the many horses, dogs and other animals that call it home. I always had an interest in the horses and started showing lead-line at age three. Over the years, I showed western pleasure, halter, trail, and love to compete in cattle sortings. I was lucky enough to be invited to help and learn at an Angus cattle ranch, riding my horses out to check on over 2000 head of cattle with the foremen was an awesome opportunity.

This year I decided to give raising hogs a try. What an unexpected eye opener it has been! With the help of an FFA loan, I purchased a Duroc and Hampshire from back east and raised them up from 20 and 40 pounds to big beautiful 215 and 270 pound hogs! At this year’s AgFest, I will show my lighter, yet well built, Duroc. She has been a very nice hog to work with and left me a fan of the breed. This project has taught me how wrong people are that say, “Hogs are easy, they sleep anywhere and they eat anything”! That may stand true for our pet mini pig running around the place, but not market hogs! To raise a lean well-muscled healthy hog, you better plan on putting some time in. The daily cleaning of pens, waters, feed bucket is just the start. You have to groom and wash them, keep them out of the sun, and have heat lamps or fans ready when needed. Not to mention keeping flies away, watch for signs of sickness and worm them regularly. Just because they are hogs, doesn't mean you want them fat from eating people food and scraps of whatever. Laying around, sleeping all day is not good for them either. They need daily exercising and conditioning just like we do. My hogs were fed only approved hog feed to encourage the best health, muscle and weight gain I could get naturally from them. I decided to stay away from all the many supplements and additives to bulk my hogs up at an unnatural rate or time frame. I hope in doing so, the meat produced will be amazing. Sometimes quality has to outweigh quantity!

I hope you will be able to support the FFA program and myself by joining us at the AgFest this year during the five days of events showcasing many youth projects. The hog market classes are on Tuesday the 17th, from 2:30-6:30 P.M. (for FFA) and the Auction starts at 9 A.M. on Saturday the 21st. I would be very happy if you would be interested in bidding and purchasing my hog at auction this year!! Register as a buyer at the auction office, get your number and have fun bidding on my Red Duroc #528

If you can't make it, your donations are also very appreciated. Thank you for your time and support. Without supported programs like this to teach the next generation...We would all become vegetarians!

Below is the hired help, my little sister! She has been a big help doing the things I can't while i'm on crutches. She is learning early
and will be ready for her own project next year~ Happy hog,she loves her morning walk and a good hosedown before breakfast!