Victoria Livestock Show For The Sake of the Kids

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If you pull back the curtain from the spinning lights at the carnival, beer gardens, live bands, crowded arenas, and boots scooting dust at any livestock show, you will see children of all ages having worked hard, putting in long hours, serious grit, and heartfelt dedication behind every animal they cared for, long after the arena lights are shut off and another year is over.

This is true for the Victoria Livestock Show as well.

Even in the midst of our country's first pandemic, kids all across the Crossroads were up most mornings before the crack of dawn, feeding, nurturing, and caring for the animals they weren't sure they would even get a chance to show. This is how much around 500 young men and women in our community are dedicated to animal husbandry.

Knowing this, the Victoria Livestock Show Committee had to make a decision, and their decision was that the Victoria Livestock Show would go on to celebrate its 75th year with social distancing guidelines in place, for the sake of the kids.

For the Victoria Livestock Show committee, this meant that no public events could be hosted, and instead, in order to celebrate the 75th anniversary with the kids who are the backbone of the show in itself, two special showings would occur in their honor exclusively.

On February 20th the Victoria Livestock Show will host an outdoor commercial heifer auction and on March 1st a unique market animal show with limited capacity. The Feb 20th commercial heifer auction will be held at the indoor pavilion at the Victoria Community Center and the March 1st market animal event will be held with limited seating of 400 inside the dome of the Victoria Community Center as well.

What makes the market animal event auction unique is that there won't be any animals. In fact, due to COVID, there will not be any meat for sale this year either.

With 265 youth participants hoping for a sale, it will be up to our community members to show their support by placing bids while participants cross the stage with just their name, club, species, and prizes announced.

Robin Janecka, Marketing Chair for the Victoria Livestock Show, offers her insight, " The Victoria Livestock Show is just one of a few shows that allows 100 percent of the auction dollars to go back to the youth without deducting fees. These kids usually turn right around and use those funds to support their animals the following year or use that money for their education. We were sad that we couldn't celebrate our 75th year with a big show and celebration, but we are happy knowing we could at least make this happen for the kids."

For more information visit the Victoria Livestock Show Facebook page here.

We wish every one of the participants the best of luck.