A new Miss Piggy?
Girl, 10, has spent most of life preparing animals for shows
Staff writer
Outside her family’s home near Marion Reservoir, 10-year-old Tayle Black often can be seen walking on leashes — not dogs but pigs. She isn’t doing it to entertain passers-by. She’s preparing them for the show ring.
Tayle has been showing pigs in 4-H and on the livestock show circuit since she was 6, and has been raising and training them since before she started school.
The rural Marion girl is spending the summer strutting her 12 show pigs in the ring and will show three of them at this year’s Marion County Fair.
“It’s just a lot of experience,” Tayle said. “They’re fun to work with.”
Tayle, who also raises and shows calves and cows, said preparing the animals for shows was a lot of work.
“I train them, I work with them in the pen, I exercise them,” she said. “I just enjoy it.”
“Sometimes they are easy to train,” Tayle said. Other times, of course, they are not so easy.
She has seven sows that she plans to breed so she can raise her own pigs.
She has four cows and calves, though she’s not planning to take any cattle to this year’s fair.
Tayle is a member of Peabody Achievers 4-H club.
Her parents, Sandy and Alan Black, don’t raise livestock, but Alan showed them as a child.
“That’s kind of how we got started,” Sandy said.
Tayle’s love of working with livestock apparently came naturally. So did it for her 5-year-old sister, Taevyn, who already shows pigs at some of the shows Tayle attends.
The theme for this year’s county fair July 20 to 28 is “Returning to our Roots.”
New to the lineup of events this year are changes to the truck and tractor pull. A new jackpot class and a larger sled trucks will pull have been added. Also new are watermelon and hot dog eating contests.
“We’re trying to bring in a variety of new events,” fair board president Brandi Barney said. “We’re trying to keep things new.”
This year’s headline concert will be Jaron Bell and Westin Price at 9:15 p.m. July 26 in the commercial building.
Price will be the warm-up performer, preparing the audience for Bell.
DJ entertainment will begin at 8:30 p.m.