Growing up in the Klickitat County Fair

Grace Bland For The Sentinel

The county fair looks different for everyone, but for Logan Telford there is a common attribute to each fair he attends— swine. Logan has an impressive track record with raising and showing pigs, this year being his 13th year as an exhibitor. With all that experience, he has a lot of knowledge, as well as a lot of good stories, that can give an inside view on what raising swine is actually like.

Being just three when he started showing with the peewee group, he had little choice in the animal he got to show. “I’ve always been showing swine, and never thought about changing because of how easy and fun they are,” he says. While not everyone would be able to agree that swine are “easy,” Logan obviously found the animals to be worth the past 13 years of his life. His mother, Jennifer Telford, is the one who helped him learn about raising the animals when he was younger, and her work in that has brought him a hobby that he very much enjoys.

Previously, Logan showed through a local 4-H group, but after struggling to maintain a steady flow of members, the group dispersed. After that,

Logan joined the Goldendale FFA Chapter, first in middle school and now in high school. Once in the FFA, he got the chance to do something new that would really test his swine skills. In Puyallup, Washington, the State Fair is held each year. The times rotate continually, but typically the swine department will travel to Puyallup in September. Once there, the kids experience fair life in a much more hectic manner. The State Fair is swarming with people and attractions that make the experience both more of a headache as well as more fun for the competitors. “It has always been lots of fun, and the prize money is a lot larger,” Logan concluded.

For someone who’s been showing practically his entire life, he hasn’t grown tired of the Fair life or of swine. “I love that all of my friends are active members in our county’s Fair, and it’s a place where we can all get together and do the things we enjoy, while learning about entrepreneurship and many other things,” he mentioned. There are most definitely some valuable life lessons to be gained at Fair, but even more, there are tons of valuable memories made. Having his family and friends by his side throughout the county and state Fairs have helped his love for the lifestyle grow.

Even with the positives, he’s met some challenges over the years, just as anyone in the livestock realm has. Specifically, getting the pigs to gain a good amount of weight each year has been a reoccurring issue. Swine are typically purchased around May and must reach between 240 to 300 pounds by the time County Fair starts. That’s a massive amount of weight gain in such a small period, even for a pig. The heat is to be held accountable for some of the struggle, as long weeks of sweltering heat can discourage the pigs from their food. Logan makes sure to up the water intake of the animals, as well as provide ample shade and a large mud pit for them to help combat the heat.

At the end of the day, Logan’s Continued page 14

Continued from page 13 experience with swine has been instilled in him since childhood, but his love for the work was gained all on its own. “I just love showing pigs; they’re like big, less intelligent dogs,” he jokes. “They are very fun to work with.”

This year he will be bringing his three pigs, Cletus, Gilbert, and Romulus, to the Klickitat County Fair, and he’s ready to dive back into the livestock lifestyle with his friends and family beside him.

§ The End