Four months ago, Rylee Tomaro visited the 60-acre Boyer farm near Porter to pick out a pig. With a pen of dozens of small hogs in front of her, none taller than her shins, she had to choose one she thought might grow to a size suitable to sell.
“When she was little, you could tell she was one of the bigger ones,” Tomaro, a 4H student who lives in Rochester, said of her pig, Lilac, on Wednesday afternoon inside a barn on the Grays Harbor County Fairgrounds. “We just kind of took a wild guess.”
Today the hog is 267 pounds. Rows of other pigs were lying low in the barn on Wednesday, noses on the ground and breathing slowly and steadily in the afternoon heat, releasing only an occasional sniffle or snort.
With the 2023 Grays Harbor County Fair just a few hours old, the barn still buzzed with talk of an auction that was now — after months of care for their animals — only a few days away. A trip through the barn will earn any fairgoer a pitch from a student looking to sell their hog at the livestock auction, which will take place on Saturday at noon.
Like Lilac, a majority of the pigs in the barn came from the Boyer farm, said Rick Boyer, whose family has owned the farm since 1875. The farm raises pigs and sells them to students in 4H and FFA programs, who then raise the animals, market and show them at the fair, and ultimately sell them to the highest bidder at the auction.
The pigs’ short lifespan, Boyer said, has made the animals increasingly popular for fair participants as 4H and FFA students juggle sports, school and other activities. Tomaro said once the pigs grow to a certain size, and as the fair approaches, training becomes more intense and frequent, as students let the pigs out of their pens and practice guiding them with sticks or other tools.
Tomaro admitted the animals are “not the easiest to train.”
“Pigs are just like kids, they have a mind of their own,” said Boyer, adding that raising pigs, and other livestock, teaches kids about responsibility.
Boyer himself has been participating in the Grays Harbor County Fair since he was eight years old. He’s 64 now, with a handful of grandsons who will show animals at this year’s fair in the open class beef show.
While the kids are prepping animals for the highly-anticipated auction on Saturday, this year’s fair isn’t all about biology, but comes with a sprinkling of engineering and electronics. The Grays Harbor and Mason County 4 H Clubs have set up inside the Mike Murphy Pavilion, where they’ll host robotics and archery events each day of the fair. It’s the second year the Mason County robotics team has joined the fair in Grays Harbor, said Michael Bigelow, a volunteer with the club.
The 4H area will also host presentations throughout the fair, on topics ranging from equestrian eyeballs to goat anatomy.
On Wednesday afternoon, Irish tunes from the Celtic band Lions of the North rung from the Jodesha Kids Zone Stage. They’ll perform twice per day on each day of the fair. A low succession of base notes could be heard nearby — soundchecks for Wednesday’s night’s headlining act, country music artist Warren Zeiders. Performances will follow from Alexander Ludwig on Thursday, Alex Mabey, Erica Corban and The Six Band on Friday, and Creedence Revelation on Saturday.
An opening ceremony, fair dedication and parade closed the fair’s opening day. Fair Manager Mike Bruner said in an email late Wednesday evening that Wednesday’s total attendance was 12,169 people, up from the 10,456 who attended the first day of the fair last year.
“The crowd was a little light early in the day, but the sunshine and the Warren Zeiders concert pulled in a strong, late arriving crowd,” Bruner said. “We’re looking forward to more sunshine on Thursday, which is kids discount day at the fair.”
Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.
Clayton Franke / The Daily World Tucker Browning sits near his pure Burkshire pig on the first day of the Grays Harbor County Fair on Aug. 2.
Clayton Franke / The Daily World Rick Boyer, whose family owns Boyer farms near Porter, feeds his 1,300-pound display cow, Miracle, at the Grays Harbor County Fair on Aug. 2. Miracle is a Pinzgauer, an Austrian breed. In Austria, farmers keep Pinzgauers in their basements and use the animals’ rising body heat to warm their homes.
