BY MICHELE RUSSELL
BACK BAY — After a busy day at school, Torrence Spreder returned home on Thursday, June 2, to take her 244-pound hog, Gary, for their final daily walk around the yard.
It was the day before a big event, both exciting and sad for the 15-year-old Kellam High School student from Back Bay – the Virginia Beach 4-H Livestock Show & Sale. There, young people aged 9 to 19 would gather on Friday, June 3, at the Creeds Ruritan Community Complex for an annual event that is a rite for many families in rural Virginia Beach.
A professional livestock judge would assess how well Torrence Spreder, who had acquired Gary five months earlier, had fed and cared for the animal. He would also judge her for “showmanship,” the skill of controlling where and when the animal walks. At the end of the day, Gary and 100 or so other hogs, lambs, goats and steer raised by local young people would be sold at auction to new owners, some for food. After months of hard work, letting go of their animals is part of a yearly process for members of the livestock club.
“I take my pictures, saying goodbye and giving him food,” said Spreder, who has been raising hogs since she was a third grader. “I used to cry all night, so I’m definitely getting better. We feed them dinner before we leave so they are full in the morning.”
Spreder started teaching Gary to respond to gentle taps of a slender, flexible whip as soon as she received the then 93-pound black Berkshire hybrid in February. With some tapping to his sides and a little bit of nudging, Gary soon learned he should walk forward. He knew to turn right when she tapped the left side of his neck. A light touch to his snout, he learned, meant stop.
For obvious reasons, it is important for handlers of animals to control them gently but unwaveringly, especially large animals who are too willful or, in the case of hogs, too smart to be easily controlled.
“Pigs are intelligent,” Spreder said. “They can get out of cages. One year I had a pig who started biting the other pigs. He didn’t win showmanship.”
Pigs can be dangerous, but she’s comfortable with them after seven years of experience. She said she plans to compete with a new hog every year until she graduates from Kellam High School. She wants to attend college in Hawaii to study marine biology.
For Spreder, working with animals through 4-H is a piece of a busy life. She served this past school year as the freshman class president at Kellam, and the rising sophomore will serve on the school student council association executive committee for sportsmanship and spirit. She is a junior varsity cheerleader, a member of the school dive team and a docent at the Virginia Aquarium.
All while maintaining straight A grades.
The Spreder family home sits on 1.5 acres on a rural road in Back Bay. Torrence Spreder lives with her parents, Creedence and Rick Spreder, and brothers Collin, her twin, and Trey, 18, whose hog Tater Tot also would be competing during the show and sale.
On their last walk, Gary sniffed the air while Torrence Spreder guided him around the family’s scenic back yard. Beyond some trees runs a creek where, in the past, her intelligent pigs liked to wallow when they escaped their pen.
The walk ended. Gary was as ready to be judged as he would get.
But first, both hogs had to be weighed so they could be classed for the market competition. The family loaded Gary and Tater Tot onto a pickup truck and drove to the Ruritan complex, where each pig was assigned a holding pen. Gary weighed 244, and Tater Tot, who in February weighed 89 pounds, now weighed 284 – a “rate of gain” for which Trey Spreder’s hog ultimately would be recognized during the show.
The animals stayed overnight in the barn under the watchful eye of Kevin Newton, chairperson of the 4-H Booster Show and Sale Committee.
By 9 a.m. on the day of the show, Gary dozed comfortably in his pen while Torrence Spreder brushed a spray product into his stiff black coat to make it shine. In the next pen, Tater Tot stuck his black snout through the bars of his enclosure to sniff passersby. Across the large holding area, its floor covered with clean wood shavings, dozens of animals stood or lay as their young owners brushed them, gave them water and talked shop with friends.
Torrence and Trey Spreder’s animals had been separated into different weight classes, meaning they would show at different times. Lighter pigs like Gary competed for the market award before the heavier pigs. Trey Spreder would compete for the showmanship award first because he was one of the older participants.
“In showmanship,” Torrence Spreder explained, “the older kids go first so the younger kids can watch what the older kids are doing.”
When Gary’s class was called and the gates opened, several pigs entered the show ring with their humans walking next to them, tapping gently. The pigs seemed to avoid the judge who walked quietly among them. After a while, the judge discussed marketable body traits he was looking for, and he called out the winners in the class. Torrence and Gary earned second place recognition. Trey and Tater Tot did, too.
They returned their animals to the pens and waited for the showmanship competition.
Showmanship wasn’t as successful as market for Torrence and Trey Spreder, however. The judge said he wanted handlers to stand up straighter, to use their whips less. He wanted the hogs to parade back and forth in front of him.
“That’s the time to show off in front of the judge,” Torrence Spreder said later. “At home we have a bucket we say is the judge, and I’ll walk him back and forth.”
Torrence looked in control in the ring, but later acknowledged Gary had been leading her now and then.
“He was obeying me sometimes, but if the pigs aren’t listening, you try to make it seem like you meant for them to go that way.”
Can the judge tell when contestants do that?
“Yes.”
She and her brother earned participation awards for showmanship. Torrence was disappointed, but she handled it in stride.
“It would be nice, but I don’t think winning is the be all and end all,” she said.
They had been at the Ruritan complex more than seven hours, and the auction wasn’t until that evening. Afterward, Gary would be handed off to new owners.
There was that to think about, but Torrence Spreder’s day wasn’t anywhere near over.
She had tryouts in a few minutes for next year’s cheerleading squad, and her mom was ready to drive her to Kellam High. Then Spreder would return to the complex and guide Gary one last time before the auctioneer.
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