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Greenwood wins big at American Dairy Goat Association National Show

Audrey Greenwood competed in the American Dairy Goat Association National Show in Madison, Wisconsin, and won both the senior showmanship competition and the premier LaMancha youth exhibitor award as well as the American LaMancha Club outstanding youth award during the July 9-11 competition.

"Winning national showmanship definitely wasn't easy," said Greenwood. "That was years of preparation for that."

Greenwood, who graduated from Oasis High School this spring, has bred dairy goats for 10 years. She uses the business name Argonne's Dairy Goats and named her entity after the U.S.S. Argonne; Greenwood's great-grandfather was a Pearl Harbor survivor and was stationed on the Argonne.

The senior showmanship competition is for exhibitors between the ages of 17 and 20. Greenwood showed Eli, a two-year-old doe. Greenwood had to re-clip Eli the day prior to showing the doe. "All that preparation paid off when I won," Greenwood said.

During the San Diego County Fair's Livestock Breed Show, Eli was the dairy goat senior reserve champion (based on the age of the goat) while Greenwood and Eli received first place in the dairy goat showmanship competition. That advanced them to the showmanship competition for all large animals, and they earned second place, but that master showmanship competition was July 4, the same day that Greenwood was leaving for Wisconsin.

Family members and friends loaded the does that Greenwood was to show at the ADGA National Show right after the fair competition, and the Greenwood family left for Wisconsin from the fairgrounds as scheduled July 4.

"We literally went from nine days at the fair straight to Wisconsin," said Greenwood. "We didn't even go home."

The journey took the Greenwood family through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa before they arrived in Madison July 8. The ADGA National Show itself encompassed July 8-14, and Greenwood helped other goat owners and breeders during the week.

"I enjoyed helping all the other Southern California breeders who went up there," Greenwood said.

Greenwood showed nine LaMancha does at the ADGA National Show. She was told that the 2017 show had the biggest class of goats since the 1990s; nearly 50 goat kids were shown.

Points for various events including showmanship are used to determine the premier exhibitors. Greenwood had the most points among LaMancha exhibitors. "That was pretty cool," she said.

Her other eight goats were shown in the breed show, and Greenwood had multiple top 10 does. "I'm competing against people who have been breeding dairy goats for over 30 years," she said.

The Greenwood family left Madison July 15 and returned to Fallbrook July 18. "It was just really fun going up there and meeting new people," Greenwood said.

Greenwood went to Wisconsin with momentum following another successful campaign at the San Diego County Fair, where her highlights included winning both grand champion and reserve champion in two dairy goat classes and receiving a Junior Livestock Auction Scholarship of $1,000.

In the Livestock Breed Show, which for dairy goats took place June 14-18, Greenwood had both the grand champion and reserve champion dairy goats for the junior group and the grand champion and reserve champion dairy goats for the senior contingent.

"I won every class that I went in," Greenwood said.

The junior grand champion and junior reserve champion were both born in March and were three months old when Greenwood showed them at the fair. The senior grand champion was four years old and the senior reserve champion was two years old. All four are LaMancha does.

"It's always super awesome seeing all my hard work paid off," Greenwood said.

Unlike the market livestock show, where most animals are sold at auction or a barn sale, the dairy goats are a multi-year ownership and stewardship activity for Greenwood. "I have those goats year-round," she said. "It's pretty cool when you're successful with all the hard work."

Greenwood, who took agriculture classes at Fallbrook High School to be eligible for membership in Fallbrook's Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter, also participated in the market livestock show but with a steer and a lamb rather than with goats. "I just have dairy goats, but they're not market," she said.

The steer was a Charolais cross Greenwood obtained from Nebraska. She acquired the steer she called Zekeotis in November 2016 and, when Zekeotis was entered at the fair June 26, he was 16 months and weighed 1,217 pounds.

The middleweight steers were divided into three groups. Zekeotis won one of those groups. "That was pretty cool," Greenwood said.

Greenwood, who intends to spend the 2017-18 school year at Palomar College, plans to undertake an alumni year and show at the 2018 San Diego County Fair. The alumni year will assist Greenwood's quest to obtain her American FFA degree.

Greenwood and Zekeotis also participated in the FFA beef showmanship competition June 30. "There were a lot of kids," Greenwood said.

Eli Martineau of Valley Center FFA took first place; Taryn Sehnert was given second place; Greenwood and Zekeotis garnered third place.

"Getting third was pretty awesome out of all of those kids who competed," said Greenwood. "I was very happy with that."

Greenwood's lamb was a Hampshire cross who was three months old when he was acquired from Arizona in March. Lenny was six months old and 140 pounds when Greenwood brought him to the fair. He placed fourth in the mediumweight class for lambs.

The FFA lamb showmanship was July 2 although a place ribbon eluded Greenwood and Lenny. "We didn't do too good," Greenwood said.

Because both animals were pre-sold, neither Zekeotis nor Lenny were part of the July 1 auction. Zekeotis sold for $5 per pound with the Greenwood family purchasing half, Fallbrook Gymnastics buying 25 percent, and Fallbrook resident Melissa Seymour purchasing 25 percent. Lenny was purchased by Jake Leivonen for $7 per pound.

Eli, the senior reserve champion during the dairy goat, took first in the dairy goat showmanship competition June 18.

"A lot of hard work – it's studying for hours and researching and spending hours grooming my goat," Greenwood said. "Everything came off when I won showmanship, so that was cool."

Applications for the Junior Livestock Auction Scholarship are available on-line and were due in March. The students were required to provide grade transcripts and information about their extracurricular activities.

Greenwood had an unweighted grade point average of 3.4 during her years at Oasis. In addition to her FFA activity, Greenwood played basketball and lacrosse for Fallbrook High School under the CIF's Multi-School Teams Status policy which allows athletes from certain schools to play for a specified other team.

Greenwood was also on the school site council at Oasis. She is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and was the Young Women's youth president for the Fallbrook Second Ward.

The scholarship application form included an essay requirement, and the subject was a challenge the applicant overcame. Greenwood wrote about her learning disability; she has a processing disorder which affects her reading, comprehension, and math abilities. As a freshman she tested into the special education program, but she tested out of special education as a senior. "That was pretty cool," she said.

The Junior Livestock Auction Scholarship applicants are interviewed by a committee in May. Greenwood, who was 5 when she first began showing at the county fair in 2003 with rabbits and has shown dairy goats at the fair since 2006, discussed her past activities at the county fair and what she had to do to prepare for the livestock shows.

The scholarship amount is based on a student's score. The students are ranked, a bar chart with scores but not names is shown to a selection committee, and the committee uses that chart to allocate the scholarship money for each position.

"I put in a lot of work getting the application ready, and turning it in paid off," Greenwood said. "I was honored to qualify and receive the scholarship. That's going to help me in my future endeavors."

Greenwood has not yet selected a college major and does not currently have career plans after college other than a preference for working in agriculture.

The public release of the scholarship recipients coincides with the fair's livestock auction. A student must also enter an animal at the county fair and the animal must place high enough to qualify for the fair auction. The requirement to have had an animal in the fair auction is not limited to the current year. Last year Greenwood raised a 138-pound lamb which was sold at auction and the 2015 auction included Greenwood's 131-pound lamb.

Greenwood joined Fallbrook 4-H when she was 5. When she began high school she transitioned her affiliation to FFA.

 

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