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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
For Rochester junior-to-be Gavin Young, showing animals is like baseball.
It takes a lot of work. And he’s good at both.
Young celebrated his eighth year in 4-H by showing the winning Grand Champion Gilt and Reserve Grand Champion Barrow at the Fulton County 4-H Fair July 13. Then he followed it up by winning Reserve Grand Champion Market Goat, Reserve Grand Champion Meat Pen Ducks, Reserve Chianina Steer and Reserve Market Heifer. He also won Champion Berkshire Barrow Swine and Champion Spot Barrow Swine.
RTC interviewed Young after the Swine Show.
“It’s taken a lot of practice and getting better at feeding them is a very important part of it, and then I’ve been putting more effort in throughout the year, so we’ve gotten better,” Young said.
Young was asked how much time goes into preparing for a swine show.
“For a swine show, it starts from day one when you get them,” Young said. “But for prepping them, you can prep them the day before and get them ready and feed them water, and we were here at 5 o’clock this morning feeding them water, prepping them and giving them electrolytes.”
The swine that Young showed were born in January. Young typically gets them in late spring.
Anticipating what the judges want is challenging, and you’ve got to figure it out yourself, according to Young.
“Each judge is different, and then we always go into a show open-minded because every judge has their opinion,” Young said. “So it just depends. You can hear stuff about the judge, but you’ll figure it out by the first class of the day or the second class of the day.”
Young lives on a “not very big” farm just outside of Rochester.
“We’ve got a nice barn,” Young said. “We built a barn this year, and it’s got about seven pens in it, and it has seven pigs, and the other barn has eight pens in it, and it’s got pigs in it too.”
As a baseball player, Young hit .227 with a .393 on-base percentage in 2022 for the Zebras. He also hit his first career varsity homer in a 13-7 win over Winamac on May 14.
Young is not the first member of his family to combine baseball and 4-H. His older brother Zaine showed beef, swine and lambs and also hit .309 with seven career homers and 56 RBIs.
He also has two younger sisters Addy and Quinnley and a younger brother Luke.
There is also a bigger farm in Culver where the Youngs farm soybeans, popcorn and seed corn.
“The animals are at the home farm, and then we have a family farm out in Culver,” Young said.
Young was asked if 4-H brings out the competitor in him that baseball does.
“I’m very competitive,” Young said. “The coaches always would get mad when I would show my competitiveness … but I just love being competitive.”
Young said he’s adding another competitive outlet this fall: He’s going to play football for the Zebras. Practice starts Aug. 1.
While both 4-H and baseball require competitiveness and hard work, Young noticed one difference.
“The difference between baseball and showing this is baseball is like a natural talent,” Young said. “You’ve got to be good at it naturally. But this, you can just put the hard work in and get better at it.”
Young is the son of Brandy and Evan Young.
