(Seguin) – The barns are warming up for the start of the 2025 Guadalupe County Youth Livestock and Homemakers Show. The show begins today at the Guadalupe County Events Center and runs through Saturday for the annual auction.
Megan Reiley, co-secretary for the youth show’s board of directors, says students have already been braving the colder temperatures hoping to take the top prize at this year’s show. This year, she says the group welcomes 587 exhibitors. With many of them involved in multiple areas, judges plan to keep an eye on over 1,600 entries.
“Our county youth show is for all of our 4H and FFA exhibitors. So, these are our students grade 3 through seniors in high school. All of these kids have agricultural projects, also some homemaking projects so everything from market steers,
swine, lambs, goats, chickens, turkeys into Ag mechanics projects – trailers, tractors, needlework, handicraft projects and baked goods. So, kind of a large spectrum of different things,” said Reiley.
Reiley says each of the exhibitors have worked very hard on their projects. She says they again look to the community for its full support.
“Last year, we were right at $1.8 million after all of our final add-ons. We are still pushing. We really want to cross that $2 million threshold this year. That’s our goal. We want to cross it. We know that our auction is really going to be close in size to last year. So, we are hoping that even though that size — that we can raise more funds for our exhibitors,’ said Reiley.
Reiley says the youth show is a valued program and truly gives back to a hardworking core of students here in our community. She says participating exhibitors include more than just Seguin ISD students.
“We have a mix of all. We have Navarro ISD. We have Clemens and Steele. We have Marion. We also do have all of the homeschools. Homeschool students are allowed to participate. We even do have students from La Vernia, New Braunfels ISD schools. You don’t have to necessarily live in Guadalupe County. You can only just show in one county. So, we do have some participants from a few other counties that do choose to show in Guadalupe County,” said Reiley.
Due to this week’s arctic blast, Reiley says show organizers will take the show one day at a time. Any changes to the various projects or shows will be shared on the youth Facebook page or on the youth show website available at gcys.org. A link to a live stream of the show can also be found on these online outlets. Those wishing to support the youth and their bravery during this week’s frigid conditions are encouraged to register as a buyer as soon as possible.