Students Prepare to Show Animals at Fair

Summer Swann, a willowy 17-year-old Canoga Park High School junior, looked mighty frail as she tried to haul her half-ton steer, Diesel, into a show ring at the school’s small farm.

With a few forceful tugs on a rope hooked to its face halter, Summer guided Diesel into the ring where her classmates frantically tried to get a grip on their uncooperative sheep, goats and calves.

As part of the school’s Environmental Science Magnet program, students purchase livestock and keep them at school where they gain hands-on experience in the daily care of animals under the watchful eye of magnet coordinator Steve Pietrolungo.

In recent weeks, the students have been grooming, weighing and showing the livestock in preparation for contests at the Valley Fair June 5-8.

In hopes of winning a blue ribbon at the fair, Summer said she has put Diesel on a strict grooming, diet and exercise regimen.

“I wash him every day to develop a shiny coat,” she said. “I feed him eggs, milk, molasses, grain and hay to increase his muscle mass. And I take him on walks to keep him lean.”

But there are times, Summer said, when Diesel lets her know that he would rather loll in his stall than be put through his paces.

“Steers have a mind of their own,” she said. “He’s broken my finger twice, kicked me a few times and one time he went on a rampage through the schoolyard.”

The rough treatment, Summer said, is all part of learning how to control Diesel, an area in which she will be judged when she shows him at the fair.

Summer’s classmate Brittany Proctor, a 16-year-old sophomore and aspiring racehorse veterinarian, also plans to show some of her livestock at the show. She takes care of a calf, a ewe, two lambs and a dairy goat at school, not to mention the 30 rabbits and 16 chickens she has at home.

“I’ve raised animals all my life,” said Brittany, whose relatives own livestock in Utah and Montana. “I just love working with animals.”