It’s 6 a.m. on a weekday morning. Texas teen Trenton Burkhalter Jr. is already at the barn, feeding his animals before classes start at Klein Forest High School, where he maintains a 3.9 grade-point average. After school, Burkhalter has football practice until 6 p.m., then he’ll return to the barn to work with his steers and goat until late into the night.
“It’s a lot,” the Klein Forest FFA member says. “But I know when stuff has to get done to make sure the animals’ needs are taken care of.”
This is the kind of routine the livestock showman grew up in. “Most of my family rodeos, and I’ve been riding horses since before I could walk,” he says. Burkhalter stopped riding bareback horses and bull calves when he started focusing on football, where the all-district defensive end is a two-year starter. He’s also a district champion wrestler.
Working Hard in All Arenas
For Burkhalter, sports and animals go hand in hand. “I wanted to be in FFA since I was little,” he says. “The first animal I raised was a pig.”
In high school, Burkhalter moved to raising steers, including one he named Quickdraw (pictured above).
“Even my agriculture teacher questioned me when I picked him,” Burkhalter says. “He was covered head to toe in ringworm, but I knew the rash would go away eventually. He had potential.”
Burkhalter was right – the skin condition cleared, and the two won a showmanship award at Quickdraw’s first event. That prize paled in comparison to the 2024 Klein ISD FFA Livestock and Project Show’s livestock auction, where Quickdraw sold for a record $22,000 as reserve champion steer.
“Going into it, I was thinking I would be OK with $10,000,” Burkhalter says. “It just kept going up and up.”
At the same show, Burkhalter was named the reserve champion goat showman. “The biggest lesson I’ve learned from showing animals is responsibility,” he says. “If you take a couple of days off not working with your animal, it affects how they look and act.”
As a livestock showman, athlete, student and FFA member, Burkhalter has learned to balance his time and commitments.
Burkhalter sees parallels between raising animals and playing sports. “You have to consistently work with your animals,” he says. “You have to consistently work hard in athletics, too.”
As a junior, Burkhalter has found a balance between FFA, sports, academics and more — a skill that will serve him well as he prepares to major in agribusiness in college and play Division 1 football.
