South Dakota
South Dakota high school grad receives full ride college livestock judging scholarship
REE HEIGHTS, S.D. — Agriculture has been a way of life for Payton Beare. She was raised on a farm near Ree Heights, started showing livestock at age 4, started 4-H when she was 8, started livestock judging when she was 10 and started FFA when she was in seventh grade.
It was her interest in animals that ultimately got her interested in livestock judging. Through that, she has gained a community.
“The whole FFA and 4-H community, whether it’s cattle, or goats, or sheep or pigs, we are all kind of a family,” she said. “It’s kind of a whole group thing that just kind of gets you involved in everything.”
Beare has been very successful in her ag activities, especially livestock judging. During her sophomore year of high school, she won the state FFA livestock judging contest. Her success in judging has earned her a full ride scholarship to Fort Scott Community College in Fort Scott, Kansas.
“It was a big weight lifted off my shoulders,” she said. “The scholarship will cover classes and books and everything else, and other scholarships will cover the food and the room and that kind of stuff. Then I got an additional scholarship that is for traveling and that additional stuff. So, it’s honestly amazing.”
Women in agriculture
Women always have played significant roles in agriculture. While the stereotypical farmer or rancher in recent centuries became male, women have continued to raise livestock, plant crops, feed crews, perform financial and bookkeeping tasks and more. The 2022 Census of Agriculture says 36% of producers are women, which may be an underrepresentation of women’s contributions to farms and ranches. In this series, we introduce some of the women in agriculture in our region.
Through livestock judging, she will be traveling a lot. Beare said the judging team last year traveled over 46,000 miles.
“I am most excited to travel,” she said. “We will come back to South Dakota, and we will judge at a few contests here. We will go all the way to Texas. We will go to all the big shows, Louisville, Kansas City, Denver, all the big ones. It’s honestly somebody’s dream to get to go to all of those and judge.”
Through livestock judging, Beare has been able to learn things that she can bring back and apply to her own operation.
“You kind of just learn to find functional animals,” she said. “If you are judging livestock, you are not going to look for animals that can’t walk or aren’t structurally sound or able to function, so when you are picking animals for your herd, you are going to look for the animals that are able to meet your standards like you would be when you are judging.”
One skill she has gained through judging is public speaking.
“I think it is really important so we have more people to stand up and speak out about the beef industry or even the livestock industry itself, so that we have leaders and we have people that will stand out for our problems and make a difference,” Beare said.
She will be doing this all while working towards a degree in bovine embryology. Livestock genetics is something that has always interested her.
“We’ve been putting embryos in here for five to 10 years, and I always looked forward to staying home from school, helping with it,” Beare said of their cattle breeding procedure. “Last year, I was loading AI guns for the guy that AIs our cattle and I actually learned how to AI this year, so I will be AIing a bunch of our cattle and that stuff this year.”
She will also be working while in school, both for Reprologix and Competitive Edge Genetics. After her time at Fort Scott, she hopes to transfer to either Oklahoma State University or Kansas State University.
“I hope to then take that experience and hopefully someday own or operate my own genetic company,” she said.
Beare encourages other young people who want to someday judge livestock in college to start learning now.
“The best thing I think that I have done is start going to livestock judging camps,” she said. “Livestock judging is a lot of confidence because you have to give reasons, which is everybody’s enemy. You have to be able to get out of your comfort zone … You have to be able to listen to everybody else’s opinion because not everybody else is going to think the same.”
South Dakota
South Dakota artist wins Duck Stamp competition
WASHINGTON, D.C. (KELO.com) — It’s a “hat trick” for a South Dakota wildlife artist.
Adam Grimm of Wallace, South Dakota this week won the 2024 Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest with an acrylic painting of a pair of spectacled eiders.
The Stamp will go on sale in late June of next year.
The Federal Duck Stamp raises approximately $40 million a year, which helps conserve wetland habitats in the National Wildlife Refuge System.
This is Grimm’s third time winning the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest.
South Dakota
FOOTBALL FRIDAY-Week 6 (9-27-24)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – The final Football Friday of September was packed full of prep pigskin action, results and FUN from across South Dakota, Southwest Minnesota and Northwest Iowa!
Our sixth show of the season featured highlights from 16 games which you can watch in the video viewer above:
-Harrisburg @ RC Stevens
-Lincoln vs. Washington
-Jefferson @ O’Gorman
-RC Central @ Brandon Valley
-Watertown @ Douglas
-Brookings @ Roosevelt
-Madison @ Sioux Falls Christian
-Dakota Valley @ Lennox
-Dell Rapids @ Tri-Valley
-Beresford @ Elk Point-Jefferson
-Redfield @ Hamlin
-Faulkton @ Sully Buttes
-Sioux Falls Lutheran @ Canistota
-Blue Earth @ Luverne
-Western Christian @ West Lyon
-Cherokee @ Central Lyon/George-Little Rock
Copyright 2024 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
South Dakota
FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers in South Dakota will close soon
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KTIV) – The FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers in Canton and North Sioux City will close in early October.
On Friday, Oct. 4 at 6 p.m., the Canton and North Sioux City locations will end operations.
Until they close, the centers will remain open Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 12 p.m. until 4 p.m. The centers are closed on Sundays.
After the Disaster Recovery Centers close, assistance will still be available to residents over the phone and virtually.
Services are available through disasterassistance.gov, the FEMA Mobile App, and the disaster assistance helpline at 800-621-FEMA (3362).
Copyright 2024 KTIV. All rights reserved.
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