Send us your updates on shows you won, events you participated in, and school activities you are working on so we can all stay updated.

 

---

 

Recently the Gleason family was highlighted on channel 49.  The copy and a link to the news story posted below was taken from the channel 49 website.

Livestock competition brings family together

Story by Ben Bauman (Contact) 5:17 p.m. Friday, September 25, 2009

To view the full video follow this link: http://www.ktka.com/news/2009/sep/25/livestock_competition_brings_family_together/

This weekend, young people from 83 Kansas counties will participate in the Kansas Junior Livestock Show, but for one Maple Hill family, this isn't their first time around the bend.

The Gleason Family are no strangers in competing in livestock shows. Each year they travel around the country attending a dozen competitions.

"Our primary focus is the cows. We have registered angus and simmental cows," says Steve Gleason, father. "Mary and the kids have a flock of ewes and the boys have their stowes and started raising their own show pigs."

This year, the Gleason boys are excited about showing off their livestock at the 77th annual Kansas Junior Livestock Show. Ranging form steers to goats, the top two animals from each category will be auctioned off.

"Hoping to get them sellin' cuz they bring in a lot of money," says Sam Gleason, 9.

"Probably the best I've done anywhere was when I was reserve showman at the angus regional in Hutch, several years ago," says Ben Gleason, 17.

But for the Gleason's it's not just winning that they look forward too.

Joe Gleason, 14, says he likes, "getting to work with them everyday, spend time with them and just going to the shows and meeting other people that you've never met before and to make new friends."

"The satisfaction of what you did and you've been working with for several months, weeks, years, to make, do the best that you can and then being around family for those times."

"[The kids] really get pretty tight knit during the summer," says mother Mary Gleason. "They have their fights, but then they learn how to get along better."

 

 

 Many of our Kansas Junior members attended the 2009 Western Regional in Fort Collins, CO.  Some pictures are displayed in the powerpoint below.