30 Nov 2020 Best in Show: Vilonia teen steps in for injured friend
By Dwain Hebda
Ever since Taylor Hoover can remember, she’s loved animals. As a tot, she begged her parents for a dog. They finally gave in when she was 12. Little did the Hoovers know what they were setting themselves up for.
“It just kind of grew from there,” said Taylor, now 16. “The next thing I got was the chickens. The next year, I got two goats. After that year, I got rabbits. And then, I guess it was the next year that I started showing.”
Out back, behind the house, is a veritable petting zoo. Over here are the dogs that Hoover trained. Over there is the flock of chickens. Just beyond are two “piddling goats,” non-show animals that she “just piddles around with.” Until recently, there were a couple of sheep, too, but with the show season over, they’re off visiting the butcher. Somewhere around here are the rabbits she shows through her 4-H club.
“I don’t see myself as a country kid. I just have the interest, I guess,” she said as she made the morning rounds. “I want to be farther out when I get older. I mean, it’s nice to have town close by, where you can still have the animals and stuff. I want a little bit of acreage. I wish I had more.”
Taylor is so into the raising and training of show animals that she wants to be an ag professor when she grows up. And she’s got a good start: In addition to qualifying at the county level to show at the Arkansas State Fair, she’s also a member of the Vilonia High School FFA Livestock Judging Team, which placed second in the state last year. Through that, she earned a trip to the national competition in Kansas City.
This year, as captain of the team, she led the squad to the state title in the virtual judging competition, earning top individual honors along the way. Through her judging work, she encountered a young man, Corey Nowlin, whose friendship gave her the opportunity to demonstrate what being a leader is all about.
“I just turned 16, he’s a year behind me,” Taylor said with a slight smile. “I judged with him on our judging team. COVID kind of cut it short, but the time that we did have, he was a lot of fun. He always had us laughing.”
Earlier this year, Nowlin was thrown from his horse and suffered a traumatic brain injury. In true small-town fashion, various events and fund drives sprang up to help the family deal with his medical expenses. The Hoovers took a more direct approach, bringing bags of groceries to the family’s door.
“After he got hurt, I was talking to him about the show and stuff,” she said. “He had one sheep and I asked him if he had anybody to show it. He said, ‘Yeah, I have a cousin that’s interested.’ I was like, ‘OK, if she needs help, I’ll be over there. I can help.’
“Well, it ended up not working out for her to be able to show it. Corey only got to halter breaking, but he did put work into the project. So, I was willing to finish the project off.”
Taylor not only had three sheep of her own to get ready for the show season, she had a very small window to get Nowlin’s sheep, dubbed Rooster, into show shape.
“I think it was maybe about five weeks,” she said” It was not very much time at all, considering that I spent six months with my other sheep to get them ready.”
Rooster had a mind of his own, as it turned out, but then, so did she. Training sessions sometimes proved a test of wills.
“[Rooster’s] actually kind of a natural, he kept his head up and just kind of wanted to work. Some sheep are just lazy and they don’t want to do anything. So, that helped. I don’t think I could have got him ready without him being lively.”
As it happened, Rooster performed well enough to “make sale,” which means he was bid on in an auction at the end of the fair. During these sales, the animal doesn’t change hands, but the young owner gets to keep the money as a sort of prize purse. By then, Nowlin’s story was well known in the livestock community and Rooster brought substantially more than usual, as a way to show support for the family. None of which would have been accomplished had she not stepped in for a friend.
“I wasn’t necessarily worried about me getting the sale, but I had to work really hard to get Rooster into sale. He did well. I consider making sale at the county fair a success,” she said. “It was kind of sad at the end of it, because I’d worked with him for four or five hours each day. I’m just kind of like, ‘Whelp.’
“With Rooster, I was just happy that the family could get the reward of that. Corey, I mean, he’s a great kid and I was happy to know that they got that money. It was a good opportunity to be a light, I guess, in this dark world.”
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