SNYDER – It wasn’t night, but these stars were out and their smiles were definitely big and bright.

This was the third year for Scurry Stars, a program started by Snyder High School senior Whitley Anderson as a way for the district’s special needs students to participate in the stock show experience.

“I heard about a neighboring county that was doing it, I thought it’d be an awesome idea, so we just started with the high school students,” Whitley said. “But this year it progressed and we actually got third through 12th grade. I know the kids really enjoyed it.”

The Scurry County Junior Livestock Show was held Jan. 18-20. On opening day, 32 special education students partnered with general education students in a showmanship activity held between the chicken and rabbit competitions.

“I’ve seen two other programs, but nothing of this size and this diverse,” said livestock judge David Frazier. “Most of them, they’ll do like pigs or whatever. This is the first one I’ve been to where the kids got to do chickens, sheep, goats, pigs.”

Due to their size, steers didn’t make the cut for the program. No one seemed to mind, however, with all the options available to them.

“One of the boys a while ago, he didn’t like the chickens and he didn’t like the sheep,” Frazier recalled. “But he liked the goats, and he liked the pigs.”

Education as more than a classroom

Frazier, an Agricultural Education professor at Tarleton State University, fills in as judge at a wide range of stock shows across the country – later that afternoon he was due in Abilene to judge their rabbit show at the Taylor County Livestock Show.

But judging Snyder’s show is an annual homecoming for him. For fifteen years, Frazier was the Ag teacher at Snyder High School before leaving to pursue his PhD.

There was a similar program when he taught at Snyder, but he said it didn’t have the same scope as Whitley’s endeavor. Her program addresses the heart of what for him is learning in one of its purest forms.

“Education, for me, is more than just a classroom,” he said. “Education is what takes place outside in the real world, and this is as real world as you’ll get; being around these animals to understand what they’re for and just to learn about them.”

Bonding

Haley Freeman, the special education teacher at Snyder High, described how Scurry Stars offers an opportunity for everyday high school students to interact with her kids.

“It’s the inclusivity, where they get to do things with their peers that they might not normally get to do outside of our program,” she said. From that experience, her students can see the self-discipline that stands as a core value for stock show kids, and to perhaps learn that for themselves, too.

“That’s an experience that they don’t necessarily get on their own,” Freeman said.

For Whitley, that’s one of her biggest reasons for starting her program. After she graduates in May, another student has pledged to take over Scurry Stars.

“I think it’s extremely important for our general education students to be able to interact with our special needs students,” Whitley said. “There was definitely some bonding out there, they’ve made friends and I think that’s so special.”

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Scurry Stars shine at Snyder stock show