ALL IT TAKES IS A Born with a fire inside, the Sparks family have a passion and competitive edge that is sure to drive them to reach the big goals they have set for themselves. Shawn and Raina Sparks grew up raising and showing swine and continue that tradition today, passing on their passion for the agriculture industry to their three children, Jace, Javen and Jailey. However, this passion has spilled over beyond just showing swine and today the Sparks family raise and show swine, sheep and goats. “My mom and dad showed pigs,” said Javen Sparks. “My dad teaches ag at Hartshorne FFA and one of his students kept telling me to start showing lambs and I got hooked on showing sheep five years ago.” The oldest of the Sparks children, Jace, found his passion not only in swine but also in goats, bringing all three small species under one roof. “Showing is really fun,” Jace said. “We work together and help each other out. “Showing has been a tradition of ours for as long as I can remember,” he said. Sticking true to their roots, the whole family takes part in showing their own competitive, home-raised hogs. From breeding and
farrowing, to raising and training them, all the way to showing and selling them, they truly care for these hogs from start to finish. “There’s a lot of changes through their life cycle,” Jace said. “First they’re little and on the wire, then they make it to the chip barn and then eventually if they are good enough, they’ll make it to OYE. “Making it to the hill and in the big ring at OYE is tough to do,” he said. “But we work hard to get there and will enjoy it always having fun. Raising them from the ground up is really special. There aren’t a lot of people out there who can breed and raise good enough ones to compete at OYE.” The Sparks are no stranger to hard work and they know that the more time spent in the barn working with their livestock projects, the more success they’ll have in the ring. “We get home from school and change our clothes, change water buckets out, walk everything, work on our showmanship and work legs and hair to keep them fresh,” Jace said. “You’ve got to be consistent at what you do. Everyday we need to come out here and make sure they’re looking good and healthy, we need to feed them and everything else.” Jace, Javen and Jailey are all extremely competitive and all three agree that they push each other to be better than they were
