Students hope for help this year at the fair

Students around the county are struggling to get sponsors for projects under groups like the Future Farmers of America, as the auction grows ever closer.

For students, sponsors means profit.

"This is Stanford, I named him that for my college fund and that name sounded catchier than two years at BC," Highland High School Student Jeanine Procell said.

Another student explained their personal experience with the costs.

"I think if you have one animal it's about $600 and going to fair, having to buy all the supplies, it's a lot," Foothill High School Student Lexie Sherwood said.

Part of the project of raising and selling an animal is pitching the project to sponsors, but lately they've been less successful.

"If they want to make money off of it, they have to get sponsors because if you sell your pig for like the bare minimum, which is like $2 a pound, that's barely going to cover the cost of taking care of the pig," Foothill High School Student Jordian Hunter said.

Flor Yanez, also a Foothill High student, had a rough time her first year showing her pig.

"It was making weight before fair, however it got really stressed out during fair...While I was in the ring, I was walking my pig doing showmanship, and it fell over and it turned purple so that's when I knew it wasn't going to make it... Eventually that night is when it passed. My mom, she told me not to cry, to brush it off, because eventually I could just get up and try again and that's what I did," Yanez said.

Now she's back with two pigs, just in case and no sponsors.

"If they don't have the sponsors a lot of times they can lose you know hundreds of dollars," Parent Tracey Poteet said.

Students' only hope is a buyer with deep pockets.

"Fortunate to have the opportunity for a local, an outside organization to come in and buy all of our animals the last two years," Teacher Craid Davidson said.

Students know him as Mystery Buyer #9 and hope he shows up again this year.

"But he usually only comes two years in a row, is what everybody's heard, so we don't know so we have no idea if he'll come back this year," Sherwood said.

Davidson said the mystery buyer may have scared off some potential sponsors, but they are still in need.

If you would like to become a buyer, call a local high school and ask for their agriculture department and say you are interested in becoming a sponsor.