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Maricopa County Fair Thank you Caroline for the photos--Looks like fun!  Bridget and Nahani (Reserve Champion Youth) - Dylan and WINS Hazz Pizazz (Grand Champion Youth) 
Bridget and Dylan above were at Maricopa County Fair. Dylan went Grand Champion Youth and Bridget went Reserve Champion Youth.
LASC YOUTH Nathan Pinckard My name is Nathan Pinckard. I live in Tehachapi, California. I'm a member of the Bear Valley 4H group I'm in the 6th grade, and I chose llamas for one of my 4H projects because they are not native in America. They also protect my goats from predators. I'm looking forward to learning more about llamas and competing in upcoming shows this year
Youth: The Future of Our Industry! By Chris Elbert Reprinted from LANA Newsletter, Spring 2005 We were involved for five yeas in the St. Croix County 4H Llama Project as a sponsor farm. We learned a great deal from our project leaders, Sheila Fugina and Jean Rickard, and also from the kids and, of course, the llamas. After moving to Washburn County, Wisconsin, in 2003, we decided to give the llama project a try here. We started with 11 kids and held monthly meetings at our farm with different themes: history of llamas, llama health, fiber, shearing, a showmanship clinic, and general “hands on” with the llamas. We finished the year with a family picnic in September and then a fun parade with the llamas at our local Cranberry Festival. At the November 4H banquet, we were truly astounded to receive the Project Leaders of the Year award! This year we want to so something a little different with the kids. We were inspired by Sheila Fugina’s article in the winter issue of LANA News and are focusing on “What do you do with a llama?” We’ve had our January meeting and, with various handouts and discussions, hope we’ve motivated our 11 kids to try some different things like packing, fiber projects, and community PR work. For our February meeting, a local fiber guild will show the kids how to process fiber and different techniques such as spinning and weaving. In March we have our local veterinarian coming to talk to the kids about health issues with llamas. By the way, we nominated our vet for the LANA hand in hand project award, and he was one of the finalists! In April the kids will help again with shearing day. May brings us some nice weather and plenty of opportunity to work with the project llamas. We have scheduled the showmanship clinic again for June. The kids loved it last year! Finally the fair is in July. This September we plan to have a packing picnic with the llamas to simulate a day hike through our trails and woods. Again we’ll wrap up the year with the great Cranberry Fest parade. To be a project leader requires a commitment and some work. But it’s a lot of fun and extremely rewarding for you, the kids, and those wonderful llamas. And you’ll make some great friends! We urge any of you who are considering starting a llama 4H project to give it a try! Thoughts on Enhancing Youth Programs By George Clements Reprinted from LANA News, Spring 2005 The following are some ideas that may assist youth leaders as they consider ways to improve the lama programs they offer for their youth. This is not a comprehensive list, but rather a few suggestions that we have found helpful in the last nine years as we work with our 4H lama project (we have both alpacas & llamas in our project, thus the one “L”). Without a doubt, the greatest strength of our project comes from our dedicated adult leaders. We have 8 farms that provide lamas free to youth who do not own their own lama. Six of our adult leaders regularly participate in ALSA level shows. All of our leaders assist in our monthly meetings and help monitor the progress of the youth on the individual farms. Without this kind of support, our project would not be nearly as successful. We also recognize the importance of keeping the older, more experienced youth involved in the project. We encourage them to become Youth Leaders. Each Youth Leader then is responsible for a group of 5-8 younger members. They check homework, assist with training problems, and keep close tabs on the progress of their group. They are also responsible for planning the fair exhibit and all fair-related activities. We have found that the more opportunities we give the public for hands-on experience with the lamas, the more support and interest we generate for our project. At our county fair, we set up a small ring next to our tent and invite the public to take a lama for a walk in the ring. Parents love the photo opportunity when their small child is walking the lama, and it gives us a great excuse to get the lamas out of their pen and walk them around. It also helps the lamas calm down for the show ring. Our lama show is one of the highlights of our fair. We always draw a large crowd. We do our best to make the show interesting to watch. Our obstacles are designed to change quickly so the people don’t get bored during long change overs and leave. We make the course interesting to watch by including obstacles that really demonstrate the ability of the lamas. Our driving class always attracts a lot of interest from the horse people. They leave with a new respect for lamas. When our costume class is in the ring, the fair almost comes to a stop to watch. All 37 of our members have their lamas in full costume. We encourage competition for the best costume, and the kids really go all out. Our judges always comment that they have never seen anything like it at other shows. We also include “Lama Games” in our show. This is another crowd pleaser. After our show, we always invite the public into the ring to meet and walk the lamas, and if time permits, we invite the public to take a lama through the obstacle course. We go out of our way to work with special needs kids, and the lamas always respond well to them. One year we invited all fair goers to help us set a Guinness World Record by walking the lamas over fiber and turning it into felt. Each visitor got a pin certifying his or her involvement, and we had TV, radio, and newspaper coverage all week. Over 1,000 people walked a lama that year. Another year we did a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society at the fair. We set up a small obstacle course that even small children could walk on and invited fair goers to go through the obstacle course with a lama and make a contribution. We raised over $500 and generated a great deal of interest and support for the project. Each year at the fair, we have an ongoing series of activities in our tent or in the area just outside the tent every day. We invite the public to get their picture taken with a lama, put on shearing demonstrations, have a variety of fiber demonstrations, including making rope, spinning, weaving, and needle felting and a large display of completed fiber projects. We also invite the 4H spinning project members to come to our tent and spin lama fiber during the fair. They like the exposure it gives their group, and it’s a great opportunity to promote lama fiber. We also recognize that our members enjoy a variety of lama-related activities. Our project meets year around. We incorporate a variety of both educational and “fun” activities into our calendar. In addition to hiking, packing, cart driving, parades, participating in other ALSA and non-ALSA shows and visits to schools, we include showmanship and performance workshops and a fiber workshop. All of these things attract people and generate more interest in our project. Each year more youth join the project, and each year the fair board recognizes the value of our project by asking us to be a bigger part of the fair. I’m sure all youth leaders have many great ideas on improving youth programs. I would welcome additional suggestions or success stories.
Jeremy Wallace, Indio Date Festival 2005
INDIO FUN Date Festival Riverside County Fair Indio, CA 2005 By Meagan Browne 12 years old
This year was the first year I got to show at the Date Festival in Indio. The neat thing was that it was the first time I did so well. In Youth Showmanship, I won Fourth Place. There were only four people in the class though. The Judge said she placed me fourth instead of third because I turned my llama the wrong way when I was turning him around. My llama, Checkers, (I’m sure you know him) did not want to stand still. I don’t blame him. I don’t like to stand still either.
I did a lot better in the performance classes. In Intermediate Youth Obstacle, I won First Place! I really didn’t think I would win because Checkers slipped and fell off the bridge. Luck was with me though, because we did the bridge again and got all the way over it. In Youth P.R. I was worried because I couldn’t figure out how to do a pivot turn. I also wasn’t able to get Checkers to go through the water. That really annoyed me because he went through the water later in Youth Pack! Since he didn’t do two of the obstacles, I didn’t think I would place very high, so I was very surprised when I got First Place! In Youth Pack he didn’t do the side pass. He did everything else O.K. though. Still it was surprising to me when I got First Place in Pack too. In the end I ended up winning Intermediate Grand Champion and Intermediate High Point Youth. For High Point, I got a Silver-plated serving tray that was engraved. I had always seen people get prizes like that at llama shows, so I was excited when I got one too! It was worth all the time I’ve spent training Checkers. I’m so excited because I’m now eligible to go to the Nationals in Nebraska! I want to practice more for the Nationals though.
I also showed Bounder, one of our recently weaned babies, in Novice Obstacle. I haven’t trained him to do very many things yet but that’s O.K. because I only showed him so that he would get used to being in the show ring. I plan on training him to be as good as Checkers some day, but that’s in due time. My friend, Bridget showed him in Novice P.R. and he did a little better in P.R. In P.R. he wouldn’t back up, walk over the tarp, and something else, I just don’t remember what. He got three refusals in P.R. too so he wasn’t allowed to finish the show.
I sang the “Stars Spangled Banner” for the opening ceremony done by the youth on Sunday morning and Bridget carried the American Flag. I was pretty shaky and almost didn’t do it because it was a last minute thing since the C.D. player wasn’t working and someone asked me to sing it. I’m glad I did it anyway.
All in all, I had a lot of fun, and that’s what counts. For me it’s about having fun. That’s what counts!!!!!!!!! Plus I’ve met some really great friends!
If you liked my story and how I write, you can read more on “Muses From Meagan” on our website, www.goldenbrownellamas.com and keep a look out for my new book, Llama Story!
LASC YOUTH WHAT I LIKE TO DO WITH MY LLAMA
My llama’s name is Checkers. Probably my favorite thing to do with him is show in Performances classes. At home, I train him for Obstacle, Pack, and P.R. My favorite class is Obstacle. Checkers thinks so too because he gets all excited when I take him on the obstacle course. My favorite obstacle is the bridge. It is a fairly easy one to learn, so that’s the one I trained him to do first. At home I am training some of our other llamas for Performance and Halter Classes. Checkers caught on fast. Of all our llamas, Checkers likes to show the most. In the P.R. class, Checkers likes it when people pet him. After all, he loves attention. I think showing him in Youth P.R. helped him because we take him out in public occasionally for educational presentations. Sometimes I take him to do Pet Therapy. Once I took him to a friend’s house right into her bedroom to visit her. She had to be in bed a lot of months. Another class I like to perform in is Youth Pack. For a long time I did not train Checkers for pack. One day we were at the Moonlight Madness Show and Tracey Wallace suggested I try Pack. So I decided I wanted to try Pack. Checkers had never worn a pack in his life and he won First Place in that class! Ever since then, Youth Pack is a regular class we enter. Special thanks to Linda Solomon for helping me learn how to train llamas.
Kids Corner By Patty Russi (This month we are starting a new section featuring the LASC kids and their activities.)
The 2004 season started off with a bang with a group of our youth and their Llamas participating in the Kids Day Parade at the Indio Show. Later on that evening all the kids that were at the show were sent on a scavenger hunt. The kids were divided up into teams of two with a younger child being teamed up with an older one. The teams had to find different Llama items and get answers to showmanship questions. In fact as it turned the judge actually asked one of the same questions during the Youth Showmanship Class on Saturday. When all was said and done the boys team of Jeremy Wallace and Ryan Russi were the first ones back with all the items and the questions answered. The kids then got their rewards and had a Kids only pizza party.
The Indio Show started off with all the kids and their Llamas marching in with the American flag and standing during the playing of the National Anthem. There was more than one misty eye in the audience. This is a new tradition we hope continues.
The rest of the weekend was spent showing with a lot of new faces in the showring. Welcome to Makenna Falconer, Kyle Free and Ryan Russi. We had a total of 8 youth showing and several of them would have given the adults a run for there money.
Congratulations to Allyson Burke and Emily Russi the Grand Champions and Makenna Falconer and Jeremy Wallace our Reserve Grand Champions. Good job kids.
On March 20th Justin Bohac, Katie Eaton, Kyle Free, Austin Lemieux, Dylan Myers, Emily and Ryan Russi all showed up in there western wear to participate in the Swallows Day Parade in San Juan Capistrano. All the kids looked great and did a real fine job on the parade route.
Looking forward to seeing you all at the next event. Parents thank you for the continued support.
LASC Featured Youth: (Every newsletter a different LASC youth will be featured in this section) Kyle Free is the youth featured this month. Kyle is nine years old and has only owned Llamas for a little over a year. Indio was Kyle’s first show and he did real well. Even though he had only been working with his Llama for a very short time he was still able to get him to do most of the obstacles. You saw improvement in every class as he and his Llama started to work a team.
Kyle jumped in feet first and showed in all of the youth classes at his first show including Youth Showmanship. He has also participated in three parades with other LASC members.
Kyle will be receiving a gift certificate sponsored by The Pondarussi Ranch. Keep up the good work Kyle.
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