From Pet to Pork Chop: Facts of Life at the Fair

It’s Little Bo Peep’s sheep on the auction block, Jack’s golden goose being hawked over EBay--Charlotte handing Wilbur over to Farmer John for a couple of bucks.

And sometimes, it’s enough to make 11-year-old Jaye Hellmich of Costa Mesa want to call it quits on the livestock business.

“Last year I said I’m not going to do this next year,” the girl said. “But there’s always the good times.”

Lying in a pen at the Orange County Fair, scratching the spot behind her 5-month-old pig’s ears and getting her pants and shirt mucked up, Jaye knew Saturday was probably the last day of Thumbelina’s life.

“The hardest part is going through that last night together,” Jaye said. “Pigs are just like big dogs. When she gets excited she perks up and she practically barks.” Thumbelina snuffled into Jaye’s pants pocket and nuzzled the girl.

For the last week, youngsters from across Orange County have displayed their livestock at the fair. Those who won blue ribbons qualified for the Junior Livestock Auction, in which buyers spend hundreds or thousands of dollars--far more than market value--to purchase the animals.

The scene mixed the barnyard pathos of E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web” with an investor’s exhilaration. The kids lost their livestock to the butcher, but some walked away with more than $1,000.

Hours after the last bid is made, many children who accompany the animals to trucks that will take them to processing plants break down and cry. The animals travel to places with names such as Hottingers Meat, Phil’s Custom Meat Cutting and the Farmer John plant in Vernon.

The junior auction has attracted young farmers from high school and community agriculture programs since 1939.

Some of the youths raise their animals at their schools, others in pens they rent at the fairgrounds, and yet others raise their livestock at home.

Rusty, an 11-month-old steer with a baby face, sold for more than $3,100 for 15-year-old Bree Kasold of La Habra.

While the younger children often entertain hopes that some buyer will donate that special pig or steer to a petting zoo, most of the youths know better.

Chris Jones, 18, of Fullerton, named the first pig he auctioned off Elmo. Never again.

“After awhile I started naming the animals Chops, Ribeye, Pork. It reminds you not to get too attached to them,” Chris said.

“You’ll see some of the kids sobbing, usually the ones who named their pigs Precious or Bubbles,” Chris said.

Kim Wrona, an agriculture advisor at Sunny Hills High School, said most of the youths have feelings about selling their livestock, even if they try hard to mask them.

“You walk through the barn at night, and a lot of the kids are crying,” she said. “But this is life if you like to eat hamburgers and hot dogs.”

As Wrona releases one of the pigs to its pen after painting an identification number on its flank, she says: “Have a nice life, pig!”

Even grand champions end up on the dinner table.

Sarah Ramey, 16, of Fullerton made more than $1,000 after Glitter the lamb sold for $8.50 a pound, dwarfing the market price of 60 cents. The buyer, Randy Smith, 52, a government relations consultant from Yorba Linda, said he paid the exorbitant sum to reward Sarah’s good work.

The lamb will make good eating, no doubt, Smith said, but it’s not an $8.50-a-pound meal.

“Obviously, it’s not a market rate, as good as the meat may taste,” Smith said.

Last year, 237 animals were sold at the auction, raising about $215,000 for the young people who sold them, said Bill Bailey, assistant livestock supervisor for the Orange County Fair. This year, 301 animals were sold, he said.

“This event teaches young people to appreciate where food comes from, and they learn the importance of agriculture in our society,” Bailey said. Many of the youths also receive scholarships.

Motor-mouthed auctioneer Dick Long--who bears an uncanny resemblance to actor Wilford Brimley--did his best to coax, inspire and shame buyers into paying a little bit more for the livestock than the market would bear.

“I’ll fight and raise hell to make a kid some money,” Long proclaimed. And most did.