Focusing onColorado’s

WesternHeritage Tips before going

out to report

Colorado Kids reporters gathered last weekend in the Centennial Room of the Educational Building at the National Western Stock Show for a workshop and a chance to put learning into practice.

The workshop included specialized lessons on interviewing techniques and photography, as well as insights into newspaper layout and how their stories get from the website and into the print version of Colorado Kids.

Then they were given an assignment: Fan out through the Stock Show, fi nd stories and fi le those stories, with photos, within 48 hours.

This special edition of CK features some of the stories they discovered and turned in. To see the rest of their work and their views of the Stock Show, visit nextgen.yourhub.com Photo by Dana Plewka

2013

ColoradoKids CK ReporterGwen Wilusz,

Fort Collins

THe STocK SHow iS bUSiNeSS!On a snowy Tuesday

morning, the stockyard at the National West-

ern Stock Show is a large chilly place.

Pen after pen of cows slightly dusted with snow, stand like small city blocks separated by dirt and brick roads.

Levi Ebert, a rancher from Kansas, is in a white tent near the auction house.

Levi raises 40 heifers (cows up to two years old) per year, and he sells between 35 and 40 every year.

The “elite” cattle are sold to commercial vendors, so that they can produce more beef.

Levi also raises bulls; when asked why bulls sometimes have rings in their noses, he explained that it was a way to control misbehaving bulls.

The nose is a sensitive place on a bull and slight pressure on the ring is enough to bring the bull under control.

Next to the stockyard , in an old building, sits the auction house where cattle are brought

to be sold. Cows, bulls, spring pasture

rights, and bull sperm are sold in an auditorium with a pen at the bottom.

Behind the pen is a platform where the auctioneer and assis-tants conduct the auction.

The livestock is brought in from the right, and paraded around in circles until the auc-tion for that particular animal is complete. Then they exit through a door on the left.

“Sold!” yells the auctioneer, after a Red Angus cattle auction.

These cattle look extra pretty

from getting washed and blow-dried earlier in their pens.

Ranch hands carrying vacuum-sized hair dryers were present in many of the occupied pens in the stock yard.

Nearby there were metal containers with numerous spray cans, bottles, brushes and towels.

Tons of cattle each year are sold at the auction, making mil-lions of dollars.

Most of that money goes to the ranchers, keeping them in busi-ness for another year.

Photo by Leslie Wilburn

If you are going to the Stock Show this year, don’t just go for the cows and live

stock: Take some time to visit the multitude of booths at the National Western Stock Show 2014!

Maggie Reed is the co-own-er of High Country Carvings, a company based in San Luis Valley. She makes and sells carvings with her husband, Travis Reed. The company makes many carvings, mostly bears and benches.

The Hawk Quest booth is also a popular booth at the Stock Show, due to the appear-ance of many live birds.

The organization is dedi-cated to helping hurt birds, al-though some of them stay for their whole life, due to injuries that cannot be fixed.

The Western Stock Show is home to many other booths, which you can visit through January 26. When you can, take some time to visit the National Western Stock Show!

Photo and story by Tripp Ceys-sens, 11, from Arvada

THe STocK SHowiS fUN!

By Leslie Wilburn,12, a CK Reporter from Denver

Show, visit nextgen.yourhub.com

January 21, 2014

Colorado idsJanuary 21, 2014

iKiKi

At the stock show, a lady walked up and asked my sister and me if we

would like to be rodeo queens.

I wasn’t sure what a rodeo queen was, but I was thinking “a queen - how cool!”

My sister and I both said yes, so she walked us to her booth. There, we met Ayla Newman,

2014 Brush Rodeo queen and Madison Warffeli, her lady-in- waiting.

They looked sharp, dressed in sparkly cowboy outfits with tiaras on their hats, decorated leather sashes across their shoulders, and colorful vests.

Alya and Madison were at the stock show explaining and dem-onstrating what being a rodeo queen is about.

Most rodeos hold a rodeo queen competition. In order to compete, you must be a single female under a certain age.

At the rodeo in Brush, girls compete to become a lady-in-waiting. They then follow the queen for a year to learn her job, and are crowned queen the following year.

Ayla became lady-in-waiting at age 18 and queen at 19.

The competition considers horsemanship, appearance, and personality.

Horsemanship is having respect for your horse, having knowledge about horses, and being an excellent rider.

Appearance judges confi-dence, modeling, and how you look in western clothing.

You are judged on personal-ity by answering a series of questions. The judges look for contestants who answer with knowledge and poise.

Ayla explained that as rodeo queen, you are basically an am-bassador for your rodeo.

You promote your rodeo by riding in parades and visiting other towns and rodeos. You also volunteer at schools and public events, sign autographs and an-swer questions about the rodeo.

You can meet Alya and Madi-son at the Stock Show or see them in action at the next Brush Rodeo from July 2-4, 2014.

They will be the ones smiling and waving at you from atop their horses.

Neglected horses seek second homes

Cheyenne, a gentle dappled horse, was purchased in 2006, with

a price of 30 cents per pound. She only weighed 940 pounds at the time.

But her buyer, although a horse rescuer, was horribly neglectful to all her horses, and didn’t provide them with the food or medical attention they needed.

So Cheyenne arrived at Colo-rado Horse Rescue barely alive, malnourished, literally all skin and bones.

Colorado Horse Rescue (or CHR) is a non-profit organization that takes in horses like Cheyenne and works to provide them with the care they need.

“We try to get them healthy, then find them for-ever homes through adoptions and sponsorships,” said Kaitlyn Swain, who has been volunteering for CHR for three years.

CHR is based in Longmont, where it has 50

acres, enough land to hold 60 horses.

CHR has booths at the Western Stock Show, Boulder County Fair, Horse Expo, and Pet Expo, where volunteers share info about the non-profit’s efforts to save horses, and sell merchandise, such as T-shirts, water bottles, and brightly colored horse stuffed animals.

At least half of the profits from these events go to the horses.

Every year on September 27, CHR holds its “Mane Event,” a night to spread information about CHR and hold auctions, where all the proceeds benefit horse rescue.

Kristen Hartman and Debbie Skillicorn, a mother and daughter from Peyton, have found CHR to be their favorite booth at the Stock Show for the past 19 years.

They flipped through CHR’s catalog of horses as they spoke affectionately of Maggie and Niji, the rescue horses they’ve adopted.

“What Colorado Horse Rescue is doing is very important,” Kristen said. “All animals need a good home, and deserve a second chance. ”

The Stock Show is part of our cultural history and tradition. Look through today’s paper for stories, pictures and advertisements that reflect history and culture of other places. Choose an example that makes you curious about the place associated with it, and tell why you find it interesting.

Beyond these four pages

Knowledge, horsemanship, poise make rodeo royalty

By Lexie Greenawalt13, a CK Reporter from Evergreen

Colorado Kidsis produced by

Denver Post Educational ServicesExecutive Editor: Dana Plewka

dplewka@denverpost.comCK Editor: Mike Peterson

coloradokidseditor@gmail.comWe welcome your comments.

For tools to extend the learning in this feature, look under“eEdition lessons” at:

www.ColoradoNIE.com

eEditions of the Post arefree of charge for classroom use.Contact us for information on all

our programs.

Denver Post Educational Services101 W. Colfax Ave.Denver CO 80202

(303) 954-3974(800) 336-7678

Wish Book Kristen Hartman and Debbie

Skillicorn look through pages of horses need-

ing homes. Photo by Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt

By Kylene Santoro,11, a CK Reporter from Morrison

Photo by Jade Santoro

This mother pig, or sow, is part of the National West-ern Nursery, a new exhibit

at the 107th Annual National West-ern Stock Show that lets people see brand new animal babies and may-be even watch them being born.

It also teaches people about farm animals and how they live.

The sow raises her eleven-day-old piglets in a pen bedded with straw open to the public to ooh and aah as her children run to and fro squealing almost as much as the crowd.

The babies seem small but that is because with pigs, the larger the liter, the smaller each piglet.

These piglets are, for now, drinking their mom’s milk, but will soon start eating more solid food such as a corn and soy mixture.

On this diet, within a year each piglet will weigh around 300

pounds, Alison Seedorf tells the small crowd.

Seedorf is the Vice President of the Colorado Future Farmers of America Association.

Though the piglets seem to be the main attraction at the nursery, there are also pens with alpacas and goats.

In the alpaca pen is a mother and a baby, but the “baby” is almost the same size as the mother!

The baby is six months old and is bred for its soft pretty wool which is a mix between hair and fur.

The goat babies, called kids, are two months old and are all hud-dled together in a corner with a heat lamp.

The two females, or nannies, in the pen each had twins, which is typical for goats.

The kids are already great climb-ers; they were scaling the hay bale in their enclosure as if it were a peak.

The National Western Nursery will continue to delight visitors until the Stock Show ends January 26.

These Stock Show performers start young

By Asher Hoyt,11, a CK Reporter from Denver

SudokuRules: Every row across, every column down and each of the six smaller boxes must contain numerals 1,2,3,4,5 and 6, one time and one time only. The solution to this week’s puzzle is on Page 4.

3

3 4

2 1

4 1 5

5 6

6 4 2

ck Kids and adults can find live links to information about stories in Colorado Kids at www.ColoradoNIE.com

Dinner line Piglets enjoy a family meal together and the Stock Show’s

new National Western Nursery exhibit. Photo by Asher Hoyt

Being sprayed with spit isn’t what you would expect when first meet-

ing someone.

But that’s how Harris, one of the alpacas from Annie’s Alpaca Ranch, greeted me when I showed up to talk with ranch owner Ann Daniel-son at the National Western Stock Show.

Appar-ently that’s normal for a more aggressive alpaca.

Woodrow, the other alpaca she was showing, was friendly but shy.

The alpaca’s wool felt like a soft blanket. Alpacas are sheared once a year, and the wool is sent to a mill to be turned into yarn, which is used to make socks, hats, scarves and even blankets.

Alpacas are much smaller than llamas and have pointier ears. The average alpaca is about 160 pounds and is valued mainly for its wool.

Llamas are used as guard animals or to carry heavy loads on long trips.

Danielson has been raising alpacas for nine years.

Having grown up on a farm in Iowa, she’s used to taking care of livestock. She currently has 16 alpacas and shows them around the state.

In competitions, alpacas are judged on the quality of their wool, their gait, their teeth

and their build.

Before judging begins, the alpacas are sepa-rated into groups by color and type.

Suri alpacas have more of a silky,

stringy wool while Huacayas have more of a blanket-like coat.

Harris and Woodrow are both Huacayas and are both brown, so they competed in the same class at the stock show. Harris placed second and Woodrow third.

Alpacas eat 2 percent of their body weight a day, mostly grass and hay.

Danielson says she likes al-pacas “because they are easy to care for and are smart.”

What she likes least? “Prob-ably the spitting.”

Five-year-old Jesse Quin-tana visited the Stock Show Sunday, January 12,

but not to see the animals.

Jesse was there to impress an audience, not to stand in one.

Ever since Jesse could walk he has had a fiddle in his hand.

When his grandmother played her fiddle for Jesse it was love at first sight for him.

Today, he practices an hour a day in the morn-ings and at night.

Jesse has the knowl-edge to play 30 tunes at his young age, and loves every minute he places a finger on his fiddle.

This young gun was at the stock show for the Colorado Fiddle Championships.

There are 8 divisions in this competition ranging in ages

from under 8 to 60 and above. Jesse participated in the

youngest division called the Small Fry.

He had already tried for two years to win this, and this year, still competing against much older competition, Jesse was determined to win the $250 and silver belt buckle with a fiddle on it.

After Jesse played his three tunes the audience went nuts, and even more so when they found out that the little 5 year

old beat out all the other contestants.

Jesse is known around the Denver fid-dling world for being the great young jammer he is.

Linnea Kenney, head of the Colo-rado Fiddle Champion-ships, said “Jesse is so good at what he does be-cause of his strong ear,

great sense of time, and the way he just loves it.”

Jesse Quintana is a kid to keep on the lookout for, and will hopefully grow into something even greater one day!

HarriS THe alpaca did expecT To raTe

‘Small fry’ bowS To No compeTiTor

Sudoku

Solution

324516

615342

432651

243165

156234

561423

By Kaden Porter,11, a CK Reporter from Denver

By Ben West13, a CK Reporter from Denver

Youth-written stories that appear here also appear on

Come read more stories, and maybe write one yourself!

w w w. n e x t g e n .y o u r h u b . c o m

Photo by Ben West

Photo by Kaden Porter