The 2012 Oklahoma Youth Expo Comes to a Grand Close

The 2012 Oklahoma Youth Expo came to a close with the Sale of Champions.  Literally hundreds of kids from across the state of Oklahoma showed thousands of animals at this year's Expo. The Oklahoma Youth Expo is the largest Youth Expo in the world and is held annually at the Oklahoma State Fair Grounds.  This year there were over 700 exhibitors.  Over 2,250 hogs were presented, over 1,000 cattle entered the show ring and I completely lost count on the number of goats and lambs that were shown.

David and I enjoyed going to the last evening of the Expo to watch the grand drive.  Our annual trip to the Youth Expo always starts with a trip to the Cattleman's Steakhouse for their lunch steak, salad with house dressing and we always start our meal with the lamb fries and end it with the coconut cream pie for David and the chocolate cream for me.

We arrived at the arena just in time to watch the last class of steers show; the crossbreds.  We like to sit in the stands and figure out which steers the judge will pick from each class.  Then we take a short break before the grand drive starts.
This year we were treated to the National Anthem played by Ray Grellner, a young violinist of Okarche FFA.

The champion exhibitors arrived in the arena to some hard thundering music, a laser light show and in a long black stretch limousine.  They were then sent off to get their animals for the grand drive.

Here are the results of the Grand Drive and the Sale of Champions:

I wish I could list them all but that would take so much time.  Here are the Grand Champion results.  The rest of the results of the Sale of Champions can be found on the OYE Facebook page.

The grand champion market goat was exhibited by Braden Schovanec of the Garger FFA and brought in $11,500.

The grand champion market barrow was exhibited by Cheyenne Gaff of the Timberlake FFA.  Her animal brought in $17,500.

The grand champion market lamb was exhibited by Tyler Rhoades of Indiahoma FFA and brought $17,500.

The grand champion market steer was exhibited by Logan Davis of the Newcastle FFA and brought a whopping $60,000!

Also, this year the Oklahoma Youth Expo started a Facebook page.  What a wonderful way to keep up with everything that happened during the 10 days of the show.  There are literally thousands of pictures on their Facebook page. If you see yourself, tag yourself.

I spoke with several seniors from different clubs around the state.  My heart hurts for them as they talked about their years in FFA or 4H that they will never forget.  An experience that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Were you a member of either FFA or 4H when you were growing up? Share your experiences with us!