Everyone has had at least one dream they want more than anything. For Paris Carlyon, it’s to travel 3,000 miles across 5 states on horseback; but of course, when we first saw her at the county fair, we didn’t know this. All we knew was that there was a nice girl who had been taking care of her hog all alone with no one to help her, and we didn’t know why.
County fairs are huge productions, with kids usually having some support in the way of teachers or other students. The goal is to qualify to sell your hog at auction by placing well in competitions. But, to compete, your hog is weighed within the first minutes of arrival, and if they’re too light, or too heavy, they’re disqualified from being sold at the auction, and everything a student has worked for in t
he last 5 months evaporates. For Paris, selling her pig at auction meant being one step closer to realizing her dream. So when her hog didn’t make weight, she was stuck in limbo, worrying over what would happen to her on auction day with no way to sell her pig. Why was she putting herself through this? She was almost a Senior in high school, a bona fide Rodeo Queen with a natural God-given talent for horses, and training to be a vet at the Arizona Humane Society. Surely, she didn’t have to be here.
County fairs are huge productions, with kids usually having some support in the way of teachers or other students. The goal is to qualify to sell your hog at auction by placing well in competitions. But, to compete, your hog is weighed within the first minutes of arrival, and if they’re too light, or too heavy, they’re disqualified from being sold at the auction, and everything a student has worked for in the last 5 months evaporates. For Paris, selling her pig at auction meant being one step closer to realizing her dream. So when her hog didn’t make weight, she was stuck in limbo, worrying over what would happen to her on auction day with no way to sell her pig. Why was she putting herself through this? She was almost a Senior in high school, a bona fide Rodeo Queen with a natural God-given talent for horses, and training to be a vet at the Arizona Humane Society. Surely, she didn’t have to be here.
If that’s what you think, you don’t know Paris. She has dreams to reach for, and they’re not going to finance themselves. So, she’s going to break wild mustangs, ride them across the great American Northwest, and when there are bumps in the road she’ll roll up her sleeves and face them; this setback was nothing she couldn’t handle. Well, we teamed up with another buyer to purchase Paris’s hog at the auction price, in awe that one small conversation could connect us to such a driven, independent, and passionate young woman. We are inspired by her dedication to her dreams and are happy to be even a small stepping stone on her journey to achieving them. Whose dreams have inspired you lately?
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