The Sweet Smell of Stanky
By Holly Martin

“These clothes are stanky,” my youngest son said as he gathered up his pig showing clothes after a weekend at the state fair.

“But it is a good stanky.”

Oh, yes it is, Lincoln. Yes it is.

It’s the smell of hard work, dedication and a whole lot of fun.

“Stanky” is our family’s modified word that means something especially smelly. And believe me, with a house full of boys, there’s a lot of things that are stanky around the Martin household.

But to us, the smell of show clothes means a whole lot more than the need to do laundry ASAP. That smell represents hours upon hours in the barn as a family.

It’s the nights spent leaning on the gate, debating how to change the rations. It’s the afternoons of exercising animals. It’s the long road trips when the best heart-to-heart talks take place. But most of all, it’s the teamwork of working together as a family toward a mutual goal.

There are days when it just doesn’t seem worth it: when it is 100 degrees and you can’t work animals until late; when supper comes out of the freezer and happens at 9 p.m.; and when you write another check for more expensive feed. Those are times that you question your sanity.

But then you see a homework assignment for your 3rd grader: five great things about me. The first thing on the list? “I love showing pigs.” After his supporting statements that include, “It’s fun,” and “I get to do it with my family,” he concludes with, “I like it more than I like watching TV.” I think that’s probably an exaggeration, but it still warms this mom’s heart.

I don’t remember the exact words that the Kansas State Fair Swine Judge, Willie Kirkpatrick, said, but his message hit home with me: Kids who grow up in a barn don’t ask whether they will have to work overtime on their first job. They don’t worry about whether they have to get there early or work weekends or when they get vacation. They know the value of hard work because it was learned back home in the barn.

I realize : What we’re doing here in this barn matters. It matters for their future and for the future of the world we live in. When we make sacrifices to give our children the 4-H and FFA experience, they will be better for it—and so will our industry.

And, if they get a little stanky in the process, all the better.