OHS FFA: cattle, sheep and hogs, oh my!
By Braylon Sport
Owasso High School is home to many extracurricular activities. Sports such as basketball or football usually get the forefront of attention, while other activities get overshadowed by Owasso’s massive sports presence. One of those activities is Owasso's FFA program. FFA strives to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. To do this, one of the many competitions they take part in is Livestock Shows.
Photo of Brooke Costello and her cow taken by Kenzee Hampton
Livestock shows are the students’ chance to show off their skills on how well they can take care of animals. Owasso showcases three main animals: cattle, swine (hogs) and sheep. All three of these animals have completely different procedures as to how to take care of them. It can also take countless hours to prepare for shows.
Owasso’s past couple of livestock shows have gone extremely well, winning five breeds at the last cattle show, a student winning the last hog show and two students getting Grand Champion lamb and Reserve Grand Champion lamb.
Brooke Costello, the Vice President of the Owasso FFA chapter, explains the chapter's success saying, “Since there [are] a lot of us compared to other [chapters] we tend to do very well at [local] shows.”
The success of the Owasso’s FFA Livestock section is also attributed to the love and care given by the students to their animals. This includes as much as three hours of care daily in order to get their animal prepared for the next show.
While Owasso does well at local shows such as Skiatook, Claremore, etc., it is difficult to compete in state-wide competitions. This is due to Owasso being a suburban town, meaning that it is difficult to hold and maintain a lot of animals due to farmland not being readily available unlike other places in the state.
Owasso's state-wide performance is not as successful as the local shows and Costello explains,“We don’t grow up with livestock backgrounds so we take what we can get.”
Owasso is an ever-changing city—the high school’s FFA Livestock shows are a part of that change. While the students are not as successful statewide as they are locally, they are still making strides to compete with the best of the best and continue to improve every year.