UW-Platteville senior ready for last state fair shows
This will be my last year. I want it bad. I do want to make my own mark for myself this year.
-- Sophia Daugherty
The first of the lasts start Saturday night for UW-Platteville's Sophia Daugherty.
After seven years of showing off the university's prize pigs on some of the biggest stages in the Midwest and the country, the fifth-year senior agricultural education major will be making her final turns in the competition show ring at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis. She'll be on the road again next week and in September to show at the Iowa State Fair and the National Barrow Show in Austin, Minnesota. After that, all the walking, the feeding, the cleaning will be just a memory as she speeds toward graduation in December.
"This will be my last year," Daugherty, 22, said as she took a break Tuesday from cleaning her pigs' pens at Pioneer Farm, UW-Platteville's working swine and cattle farm. "I want it bad. I do want to make my own mark for myself this year."
Daugherty, who hails from Cuba City, has literally spent her entire life on Pioneer Farm. Her father, Justin Daugherty, has worked at the farm for 19 years managing beef cattle. She would often tag along with him to visit the pigs, she said. Over the years she built a special relationship with Alicia Prill-Adams, Pioneer Farm's animal care manager, chatting not just about pigs but about life in general.
Sophia showed her first Pioneer Farm pigs when she was a high school sophomore. From there, Justin volunteered to drive her to shows using his own truck and trailer -- "great memories," he said, recalling a time when their truck broke down in Indiana -- but the road led right back to UW-Platteville after high school. It made sense to enroll here, Sophia said -- the campus was close to home, she'd already built connections and the farm offered hands-on experience.
College wasn't always an easy journey for her, though, Prill-Adams said.
"I don't know if she knew what her goals were," Prill-Adams said. "When a lot of students come here, they think they have these grandiose goals, and they find that what they get is completely different. If they are willing to have an open mind and are willing to listen and learn from people who see what their strengths and weaknesses are, they can reach their potential ... I respect (Sophia) from the standpoint that she's always come back, she listened and she learned and she did better."
Indeed, Sophia went on to become president of the Block and Bridle Club, a campus organization for students interested in livestock, and last year showed a Berkshire boar that took runner-up at the Wisconsin State Fair.
"(UW-Platteville) shaped me, mostly by pushing me out of my comfort zone," Sophia said. "The whole campus felt like home. That's what made me want to stay another semester and continue learning."
And now she's days away from her last walk at the Wisconsin State Fair. She plans to bring eight Berkshire gilts and a single Tamworth gilt, the term for a female pig that has yet to produce piglets, to the state fairs and the Minnesota show.
The university typically covers the costs of feed and travel for shows. Charles Steiner, assistant dean of the College of Business, Industry, Life Science and Agriculture and Pioneer Farm director, said allowing students to show the farm's animals is a win-win. Students gain hands-on experience with the animals and the chance to network with some of the biggest names in the swine, dairy and beef industry. Pioneer Farm gains exposure that can attract new students to UW-Platteville, Steiner said.
"When we have students excel like this it helps move our farm forward," Steiner said. "I'm just excited to see where her career goes from here."
And where might that be? Sophia isn't sure. She wants to educate people about agriculture in whatever form that might take. She's also toying with working as a radio personality. For the next few months, though, it's all about her pigs. She said she rarely sleeps before a show, and the adrenaline is already pumping for Saturday night.
"I'm excited to go," she said. "I look forward to the memories and just a big thanks to everyone who's gotten me here, and the university for providing me with the experience."
The Wisconsin State Fair runs Aug. 6-16 at Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis.
The Iowa State Fair runs Aug. 13-23 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.
The National Barrow Show runs Sept. 11-14 at the Mower County Fairgrounds in Austin, Minnesota.