Given the large number of exhibitors, Bo Perez is not likely to show the grand champion swine today at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg.
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But with the help of his pigs this year, the Penn Manor ninth grader achieved much more.
Perez, 15, of Creek Road, Millersville, credits his work raising pigs with helping him persevere after a life-altering tragedy.
The story begins a year ago, when Bo decided for the first time to show pigs through 4-H like his neighbors, Kaleb and Cameron Long and Ethan Barley.
Bo's father, Mark Perez, encouraged his son to give it a try.
Bo was already an active kid. He enjoyed wrestling — at a muscular 210 pounds — for his school team and helping his father, a mechanic, fix cars.
He and brother Tony, 16, also liked riding ATVs with their father. Their favorite four-wheeling jaunt was to Rausch Creek Trailriders' riding area, northeast of Harrisburg.
Bo found his new little piglets offered a different kind of fun, and he couldn't help becoming attached to his four-legged friends.
Bo and Cameron, 13, named their piglets Rocky, Rambo, Bo and Luke.
They carried the little squealers around and petted them.
The boys hand fed the piglets marshmallows, Smarties candy, vanilla wafers and apples as rewards during training.
Bo and Cameron crawled in the pigs' pens and played with them under their heat lamps.
Then, in April, tragedy struck.
Bo's father, Mark, and brother, Tony, were riding ATVs together —!\qBo was not with them — when Mark wrecked.
The 35-year-old died from his injuries, leaving behind his fiancee, Tammy Sload, two sons, two young daughters, Carrianne and Sarah, and Sload's son, Nathaniel Sload.
Bo was devastated and sank into depression.
He quit his extra-curricular activities, and he quit hanging out with friends.
Bo didn't even visit his pigs for a month.
"I really didn't want to keep doing it," he said. "Too much stuff was going on."
Cameron remembers the day Bo returned to the hog barn at Ethan Barley's farm where the boys keep their pigs.
"Me and my brother were taking care of the pigs, and then he just showed up one day," Cameron said. "He said, 'What do we got to do with the pigs?' "
Bo jumped back into his 4-H duties, working with the pigs daily from then on. He helped feed, walk and tag them and clean out their pens.
It was a step toward resuming his daily life, a step toward recovery.
"Pigs were the first thing I got back into," Bo said.
He decided to stick with it after tasting success in the show ring.
At the Lancaster 4-H County Roundup in August, Bo had the champion extra-heavyweight hog.
"It felt good," he said. "It was my first time showing pigs, and I got first place."
At the Solanco Fair in September, Bo showed the champion light heavyweight and champion lightweight pigs. Also, to his surprise, he won a third place for his showmanship, competing against more than 20 others.
His pigs earned a second-place and two third-place finishes at the Lampeter Fair.
Bo benefits greatly from having friends showing with him and helping him along the way.
The Long family gave some pigs to Bo. He raises them and then pays the Longs some of the earnings when the animals sell at auction.
Kaleb and Cameron Long and Barley have experience showing hogs and pass on their knowledge to Bo.
"It's more fun showing with others," Cameron said.
Tammy Sload is now the legal guardian of Bo, who is still adjusting to life without his father.
"I think of him mostly when I'm doing something I did with him," Bo said, "like riding four-wheelers. He liked watching me wrestling."
Today, Bo planned to show either a 240-pound Berkshire hog or a 230-pound Yorkshire hog in the junior market swine competition.
His dad wasn't in the stands to cheer him on, but Bo felt his support.
"I think he'd be proud I'm doing so good my first year," Bo said of showing pigs. "I think he'd want me to keep doing it."
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