4-H members exhibit animals at Eastern Navajo Fair

CROWNPOINT – Part of the grooming process included blow-drying her beloved steer.

Ponderosa 4-H member Leilana Charley, 17, spent some time glossing up Rooster for the senior beef division on Friday during the Eastern Navajo Fair 4-H Junior Livestock Show.

“I was basically setting him up to make him look big and wide,” Charley said. “I tried to make him look shiny and fluffier.”

Charley is from Pine Hill, New Mexico, on the Ramah Navajo reservation. Her parents are Halbert and Rochelle Charley.

The soon-to-be Pine Hill High senior has been showing large animals since she was 5 years old starting with lambs. At 13 she started exhibiting steers and currently, she’s the only member in her 4-H club that has been in existence for 54 years.

“My mom got me started when I was small,” Charley said. “She told me that I didn’t have a choice, but after my first year, I found a passion for it. I just grew a special bond with my animals and, you know, they’re really hard to give up at the end of the year when they get sold.”

Charley purchased Rooster from a private seller when it weighed 500 pounds at three months old.

“I didn’t choose him, but the (person) that we worked with said he had a calf that he thought I could do really good at showing,” the Pine Hill senior said. “He picked this one out for us.”

After working with Rooster for eight months, the red Shorthorn Cross weighed in at a hefty 962 pounds as the bovine finished as the reserve champion in the senior division.

“We feed him a lot of grain and supplements,” Charley said. “He does get hay, but it’s very little because we want him to gain weight from the grain.”

The event was judged by Bloomfield’s Taylee Velasquez, a Texas Tech Ag graduate. In her assessment, Velasquez proposed that Charley fatten up her steer.

“She wanted me to make him rounder, and get some more weight on him,” Charley said.

The ENF 4-H show had six different clubs that exhibited their projects to Velasquez.

“All these exhibitors did a phenomenal job,” Velasquez said. “I kind of had general conversations with them on where they’re at as far as this fair, stage, and showmanship.

“These kids are knowledgeable about livestock,” she added. “I want to congratulate them on getting their livestock set up and that’s important. It’s obvious that they have the ability to show and present their animals in this ring.”

The 4-H show in Crownpoint had 22 entries for market lamb, four entries each for market goats and market steers, and three entries for swine in the large animal category.

The small animals featured 12 entries for rabbits and three for poultry.

Despite seeing small numbers, ENF 4-H coordinator Chambliss Lantana believed that the show was a success.

“Hopefully, we’ll have a better turnout for next year with more entries, but this is a success because we had a lot of kids that came out and tried hard,” Lantana said. “We want to continue this for the youth that are involved in the field of Ag.”

Due to a discrepancy in mail services, some entries were rejected for missing the June 14 deadline.

“I’m not sure what happened but I think the post office had the wrong address,” said Lantana, who used to show at the annual event.

The Becenti, New Mexico, native believes the 4-H show got its start in the mid-1990s. Since then, it’s been held every year except two years during the height of the global pandemic.

“This has been part of the fair for a long time,” Lantana said. “We like to thank our sponsors and everyone that helped chipped in. We’re just thankful for everyone that made this fair a success, you know, from our committee members and our fair coordinators for helping out with awards and maintaining the facility.”

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