Twelve-year-old Coby Hudson is an FSA Youth Loan recipient who raised a grand championship pig.
Coby Hudson is an ambitious pre-teen who understand the concept of farming.
“Sometimes living on a farm means less sleep to make sure everything like chores, schoolwork and other stuff gets done, but it’s just a part of the life,” said the 12-year-old.
But learning that concept early in life is what made Coby a grand champion.
The sixth-grade student from Fruita, Colo., won the grand championship swine competition at the Mesa County fair in July. It was his first grand championship as a 4-H’er since he was a 5-year-old cloverbud.
“We both cried,” said Coby’s parents, Jennie and Ryan Hudson. “Coby is such a hard working kid and to see him rewarded in such a way was overwhelming. I couldn’t even watch as the grand champion was picked. I had my head buried in my sister’s shoulder, but I could hear the judge. When the screaming started I just knew it was Coby,” said Jennie.
What made the moment even more special was that it was the first grand championship for Laurie Neilson too. “I was ecstatic. This was the first time I have made a youth loan where the result was a grand champion,” she said.
A farm loan manager with the Colorado Grand Junction FSA Service Center, Neilson has known Coby’s father for most of his life. Now she gets the opportunity to work with the latest generation.
“I have known [Coby’s] dad Ryan since he was a child. He is now the local high school FFA teacher. He has sent me numerous students over the years to get youth loans,” she said. “As soon as Coby got old enough, Ryan asked if he could get a loan from FSA.”
Coby said he needed the loan to help start a breeding operation. “It helped me out a lot. I got to build a really nice pig barn,” he said.
That barn housed a championship pig that wasn’t expected to win. The pig Coby wanted to enter into the competition died a month before the county fair.
“I knew this pig was good, but I didn’t know he was going to be the champion,” said Coby. “I was excited because I work really hard with my pigs and I was so happy and I knew my dad was so proud.”
His parents said they offer supervision to Coby and his younger sister Addie when it comes to raising their animals, but they are mainly hands off. “We feel like this teaches them exceptional responsibility and when they win something as big as grand champion, it means so much more because it is their hard work, not ours,” said Jennie.
That theory holds true to throughout Coby’s life as he also competes in archery and shotgun at the county and state fairs and plays football for the Fruita Patriots and wrestles for the L’il Mavs.
As for his future, there is only one thing Coby wants to do.
“I want to raise pigs…that’s pretty much it,” he said.
