Lemoore High School's vaunted FFA fields 70-person contingent at annual Kings County Fair and returns home with truck load of awards

Nearly 40 LHS students walked away with ribbons, including Supreme Grand Champion Steer owner David Schultz, a senior who recently graduated from Lemoore High. Danae Brewster, a local 10th grader, had the fair’s Supreme Grand Champion Feeder Beef. Schultz also took first place in Advanced FFA showmanship. Another 10th grader, Leonel Camacho won first in Novice showmanship.

Those students and the other 70 or so kids arrived at the Fair on Tuesday to begin preparing for the four-day run from Thursday to Sunday.

“The responsibility of owning an animal, like swine for example, 60 to 70 days of feeding it, keeping track of its weight, learning how to show the animal, taking care of it and just the responsibility that the kids have … give the students an extremely important life-long lesson for them to have and for them to understand about agriculture,” said FFA Advisor Matt Moreno, who along with fellow agriculture teachers Howard Clark and Marybeth Hearn, kept tabs on the students all week.

Moreno said the current FFA has 450 students involved on a full-time basis at the high school. There were 70 students participating with their dairy cows, feeder beef, swine and lambs at the fair. The Lemoore contingent took up a very large part of the entire exhibit, which featured local 4-H clubs as well as other schools.

This year the students got a big “boost” from their FFA Boosters organization, comprised of local businesses, parents and helpers. “For the second year in a row, our FFA Boosters, our parent club has given a $100 gift card to all students in FFA to help with their Fair projects,” said Moreno. “This year they awarded over $7,000 at our end of the year FFA banquet to help those kids with fair expenses, feed, and whatever they may need.”

Amanda Phelps, and her prize hog Pickles, managed a good showing with a fifth place in her class. She loved the experience of the fair. “I just love the animals and helping other people. I want to be a vet and go to vet school after high school,” she said. “Getting the experience with animals, it means a lot to me and I know it’s going to help me.”

This was Phelp’s first year in the FFA and she plans on continuing and taking care of another animal next year.

Students who placed at various animal competitions and shows:

Megan Pedro was second in Novice Showmanship; In Advanced Beef Showmanship, Kyle Jue, Andy Lima and Justin Rowell each placed. David Schultz, Andy Lima, Kyle Jue, Leonel Camacho, Shelby Inman, Trinity Jones, Danae Brewster, Megan Pedro, Adrianna Pedro and Justin Rowel placed in the Beef Exhibitors competition. Lima, Camacho, Jones, Brewster and Pedro took top honors.

In Dairy Replacement Heifers Kirby Toomey, Kaitlin Raulino, Kristina Raulino, and Kimberlie Raulino each placed.

In the always interesting Swine division, Lemoore took home a total of 13 ribbons: Mason Silva, Jacob Duncil, Hannah Rodrigues, Spencer Stinger, Arin Costa, Axle Huml, Amanda Phelps, Hailee French, Sam Jones, Adrianna Smith, Bridget Simas, and Brett Garcia were tops in their field.

Simas and Rodriguez took first place ribbons in their respective classes.

Steven Allison took first place in the Lambs division in Market Class, as well as a fourth place in Advanced Showmanship. Jordan Lee also won top honors in Novice Showmanship with his lamb. Andrew Bassego, Jackie Vasquez and Dylan Grybicki also earned ribbons.

Other lamb exhibitors included Sarah Moreno, Mitchell Lawrence, Lucia Solis, and Kaitlin Sweet.