STUDENT ECSTATIC WITH 4-H AUCTION
Hobbs High School senior’s 1,355-pound steer named Bossier sells for a record $25,000 at the New Mexico State Fair.
It’s hard to think of a white, 1,355-pound Charolais breed market steer as a pet, but Matthew Pointer acknowledges that he is rather attached to his 15-month-old animal named Bossier.
On Friday, Bossier, the grand champion winning steer, sold for a whopping $25,000 at the 4-H Junior Livestock Auction at the New Mexico State Fair. It was the largest sum paid for an animal during the auction, according to a 4-H official.
“It’s a blessing, honestly,” said Pointer, a 17-year-old senior at Hobbs High School in Lea County. He estimated the fair market value of the animal at about $1,200.
“It definitely exceeded my expectations. I would have been happy with anything. I would have been happy if I walked away with $1,000.”
Pointer must have been ecstatic beyond belief walking away with $25,000, which he said will allow him to save money for college, as well as buy animals for additional 4-H projects.
This is his seventh year raising and showing animals through the 4-H program, but his first championship win and his largest auction sale.
“4-H teaches life lessons,” Pointer said. “You learn about responsibility, and
getting up early in the morning, and I can’t tell you how many times I was out in the barn until 11 p.m.”
He has even had to pick up jobs the past few summers to get money to pay for items required to maintain his animals.
“I do get attached,” Pointer said of Bossier. “He is like a pet. He is a big ol’ baby and so good-natured,” which makes it difficult to part with the animal when it is auctioned off, particularly knowing it will eventually be slaughtered for meat.
Asked if $25,000 would ease some of that pain, Pointer just smiled.
State 4-H program leader Steve Beck said 4-H is a “positive youth development organization” for kids ages 9-18 that uses hands-on projects, such as raising livestock, to teach life skills like responsibility and cooperation “so kids can be successful in life.”
Nearly 90 animals, including cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens, all of them judged to be the best, were auctioned off.
“We have thousands of 4-H kids across the state who have raised animals, but don’t get to this level,” Beck said.
Kaley King, 11, from Mosquero, was showing two prize-winning pigs, each weighing in the neighborhood of 240 pounds.
“Every morning, I get up and feed them, and then wash them with soap and water, and each day I take them for a 15- or 20-minute walk.”
The aerobic exercise is necessary to build up the animals’ wind “so they don’t breathe hard when they’re being shown,” said the Mosquero Elementary School sixthgrader.
“I get attached to them, which is good because you take better care of them, but bad because, after they’re sold, you don’t see them again.”
Participating in 4-H is fun, “but I also do it for the money,” she said, adding that she was hoping her swine would fetch at least $1,200 each.