State fair culminates efforts for Valley 4-H Club participants

PALMER — It’s not the money, the months of hard work or the satisfaction of earning a ribbon at the Alaska State Fair that keeps 14-year-old 4-H Club participant Allison Manary coming back year after year. For the Palmer High School freshman, raising animals to show comes down to one word — one very creative pseudo-word.

Pigsonality.

“This one’s pretty mellow, she’s quiet,” Manary said about Gwenith, a 5-month-old, 269-pound York X that placed fifth in the Auction Division of the state fair this year. Then she points to Gremlin. “That one, though, is crazy, very crazy. She’s very loud. Gremlin can escape on her own. She’s very, very smart. It’s very difficult to catch her. It likes to run and play, so if she feels like she doesn’t have enough room, she’ll take off. They’re very different, it’s their ‘pigsonality.’”

Pigs are very intelligent animals, Manary said, which makes them interesting. That’s why during her time in 4-H she’s always raised pigs. And while she may just be 14, she’s a state fair veteran.

“This is my sixth or seventh year,” she said. “I’ve always done pigs, but my mom has goats and we have baby cows and a whole bunch of other animals at home. I like pigs because they’re very smart.”

Sometimes too smart.

Manary recalled one of her first trips to the fair when one of her ornery oinkers decided to check out the fair on its own.

“I had a pig one year that actually did get out of the cage,” she said. “It opened the gate and pulled it open and got out. It was a pain, too, because it was out for awhile. He got out that morning and no one was here, so he just wandered around. I got here and people were chasing around my pig.”

Aside from chasing some porkers that decide to hoof it, the state fair is an important time for youth who participate in 4-H, Manary said. Those who raise animals work for months — she got Gwenith in February as a 70-pound piglet — toward one goal: the auction.

“That’s very important,” she said. A good price at auction means another year of competition and, for many, money for college. “I actually save $100 from the auction for the next year, because the piglets we get cost $150, so you have to save some.”

4-H also helps kids learn valuable life skills, she said, and for older youths like herself, to be mentors to the younger participants. In addition to Gwenith and Gremlin, she helped her 10-year-old brother Nathan with his pig, Charlie.

“I worked with that pig for him,” she said. “It was hard to give him up, I did grow attached to Charlie.”

She also enjoys being a role model for some of the younger 4-H kids.

“There are a lot of people who go around and ask for your help,” she said. “It’s a very good experience. It has helped me, actually, to come out of my shell a lot. I used to be very quiet when I was little, and I actually like to talk to people now.”

She also has learned how to deal with some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of raising animals, namely what happens to them after auction.

“It is disappointing,” she admitted. “But you have to. There have been years, though, when I’m just, like, ‘Go! I don’t want you anymore.’ But other years I do get pretty attached. Sometimes you’ve got to let go. It’s hard, but you’ve got to.”

Like hundreds of other youth from around Alaska, the state fair is the highlight of Manary’s 4-H experience, and she said she’ll continue to pamper her porkers.

“I like that pigs just have very bright personalities, most of them do, anyway,” she said. “They’re also very entertaining.”

Pigsonality.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.