It’s the 110th year of the MontanaFair at MetraPark in Billings, and one enduring tradition visitors can see is kids lining up with their shirts buttoned to the collar, animals fluffed and hopes high.
Competitors on Monday afternoon spritzed their cattle down next to the show ring in the Metrapark expo center. The attention was in the middle of the room, where the older kids led their cattle through the gate of a metal showpen.
Behind them, the younger kids groom their animals and get ready to chance to show off the results of their hard work raising, feeding and caring for their animals. That is the second time competing for 11-year-old Reece Lackman of Billings. This year, she entered two steers, Maverick and Goose.
“Nervous. I’m very nervous,” she said.
Her family, parents and grandparents, hung out by the stall. Reece’s dad, Luke Lackman, farms and runs a feedlot in west Billings. He said he also participated in events like this as a kid.
“I think overall it just teaches them work ethic,” he said. “They gotta get up every morning, they gotta do their chores, they gotta take care of their animals. That’s kind what we’re in it for, just teach them responsibility and hopefully they make a little money after that too.”
After more than a week of 4H showcases and judging, there will be a sale of the cattle the kids have raised to members of the public for beef and breeding.
Reese says she remembers her first year, it was hard to say goodbye.
“I am using the money I get from them to go to college and raise a cattle herd to get more money to go to college, so it’s really sad, but thinking about raising more cattle is also really nice, so that also makes me happy,” she said.
The fair runs through August 16.
