Watch opening day of the 87th Western Junior Livestock Show in Rapid City | lifestyle

Rapid City SD – The Central State Fairgrounds is being prepared for the Western Junior Livestock Show. The show features over 400 children between the ages of 8 and 18 from seven different states competing by showing goats, cattle, sheep and more.

The Western Junior Livestock Show runs October 8th through 2019^Th and 12^Th. According to WJLA President Rick Johnson, almost all participants work in agriculture.

“These are mainly agricultural producing families. These are showmen, they are farm and ranch people. We produce here, we have lambs, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle,” Johnson said.

Animals are exhibited and judged at livestock shows. There are aspects of the competition that some participants look forward to more than others.

Addison Teigen, who shows sheep, said: “You get used to it after a while. I like scissoring the least. But I love being with the animals. And you always get an animal that you like more than the others.”

Every year the size shocks many visitors to the livestock show.

“How big it is. How big it is. “A lot of times they think it’s like a carnival, but it’s huge,” Taya Smith, another competitor, said. It shows goats, cattle and sheep.

This year marks the 87th^Th Year the Western Junior Livestock Show calls the Central State Fairgrounds home, all run by the same families.

Rick Johnson added: “I am a fourth-generation young Western director. My great-grandfather started this show. My grandfather was a director, my father was a director and now I’m the director and president of the show.”

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