Sierra Payne shows her market gilt at the Jasper County Jackpot Show.
Sierra Payne is a recent graduate of North Clay High School, where she started her competitive diversified livestock production Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) record book. The book focuses on her breeding swine program, market swine and equine projects.
A Love for the Swine Industry
When she was old enough to speak in sentences, Payne started to raise and take care of pigs with her older brother. Now, with hard work and dedication to her projects, she diligently breeds and raises her own show pigs. When she is happy with her results, she sells her pigs to other 4-H and FFA members across the state of Illinois.
Once this process is completed, Payne said she “selects 4-5 pigs from my breeding herd that I will raise, take care of and take to shows all over Illinois.”
A True Equestrian
Payne has also been raised with horses her entire life. Each day, she takes proper care and completes the tasks needed to achieve a detailed and successful equine record book. She makes sure that the horses maintain proper health and are sound and ready before taking them through her favorite trails. Speaking of trails, Payne loves to ride her horses in southern Illinois at the Shawnee National Forest.
Sierra Payne taking pictures with her trail riding horse.
From Start to Finish
“I started this SAE as a freshman, but I have had the horses, breeding swine and market swine since I was a baby,” Payne says.
She knew as soon as she heard the word “SAE” announced in her introduction to agriculture class what she would be pursuing. Since Payne has spent her life around both pigs and horses, why not show off her love for both industries?
She also explains that her older brother is the one who really got her into the record books. With this, she felt as though she needed to be productive within her work as well as successful.
And success is not an understatement. During her junior year, Payne won first place for her record book in Section 23. Then, during her senior year, she won first place SAE book in District 5.
Although all things must come to an end, “I have loved every minute of it. I am very sad that my FFA days are coming to an end,” Walker says.
She’s now attending Lakeland College in Mattoon, Ill., where she is an agriculture transfer major. She hopes that everyone may find the kind of passion that she has within her award-winning diversified livestock production SAE.
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