Mya Wolka of Brownstown was introduced to the livestock industry and the competitive world of pig showing when she was only 9.

Now, she is 16 and was crowned champion crossbred gilt at the National Junior Swine Association Southeast Regional in Perry, Georgia, in January.

The junior at Seymour High School lived in town until she was 9 and got into pig showing when her dad came home with two gilts, a female pig that has not had a litter of pigs yet, and told her she should consider showing them at the county fair that summer.

Since then, she hasn’t stopped, and when they moved out to the countryside, her family turned an old barn into a show barn.

Growing up, she competed in various county and state pig shows, even traveling to other parts of the country.

In the past few years, Wolka has traveled to Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, Florida and recently Georgia for the NJSA Southeast Regional.

This event is held every year in January and is the second biggest swine show in the country. Wolka competed in several different contests that also were part of the event.

First was the showmanship contest, where the individual is judged on the ability to control the pig in the showing area and what fits that judge’s style the best.

Next was the skillathon, where contestants were tested on their knowledge of the swine industry.

Finally, the pig show. It was split into gilts and barrows, a castrated male pig, and then into purebred and crossbred, respectively. Wolka took five pigs on her five-day trip to Georgia, primarily focusing on the crossbred gilts, saying that was her best chance to win a show.

The winning pig is selected by the judge that he feels has the best qualities for that division. The judges determine a good quality swine by looking into certain qualities, such as soundness (the conformation of an animal), skeletal quality, muscle shape, body composition and how stout the animal is and then how well all of those balance together.

There also are other elements the judges look into, such as skin and hair, that gives the participant extra points.

“It’s still one man’s opinion and is very subjective, so while you might win under one judge, you could get beat under the next judge based upon their priorities and preferences,” Wolka said.

Many county and state swine competitions come with a set of rules the participant must follow.

For NJSA events, the exhibitor must be under the age of 21, and for the Southeast Regional, the pigs are to be born no earlier than June of that year.

Wolka said there were more than 2,500 pigs at the show with most states represented and around 400 pigs just in the crossbred gilt division.

Wolka said crossbred pigs are pigs that aren’t pedigreed in any of the purebred associations, and purebreds are papered animals that are sired by a boar from that particular breed.

Wolka was not sure about the exact number of participants at the event, but she was able to see her friends from other states that she has met over the years.

“It’s fun to see friends from other states that we’ve gotten to know. There were several other families from our area that competed at Perry, as well,” she said.

Juggling schoolwork and the manual labor that comes with taking care of farm animals, Wolka said it can be hard to manage both at times.

“Some days, especially while school is in session, it’s hard to juggle both. In the mornings before school, I run out and feed and check on things, and then most days when I get home from school, I go back to the barn to check on things and clean,” she said.

Wolka said she feeds the animals twice a day, once at 7 a.m. and again at 7 p.m. Some days require more attention than others depending on the schedule of that week, what needs cleaned and if they are preparing for showings.

On top of cleaning the pens and feeding the animals, she also washes the pigs and grooms them to make sure they look and feel healthy for the competitions.

Wolka said she stays on top of most of her homework by completing it at school and looks forward to the summertime, as it is less stressful to not juggle both.

When she first entered the show ring, Wolka said she was nervous. Her show pig, Thumper, had a good winter and was quite the winner, so she knew she had a shot.

“I got penned right away, so I knew that the judge liked her, and that was pretty exciting,” Wolka said.

She said the show ring at Perry somewhat looked like a stadium with green carpet in the ring, much different from other shows, where it’s usually shavings or dirt on which the pigs are shown.

When the judges called her name for champion, she could hardly contain her excitement, for this was something she worked hard to achieve.

“We’ve shown at Perry, Georgia, for several years now and have always been close to getting a piece of it, so to actually win it was pretty special. When I got out of the ring, my dad and Monroe were waiting on me with the rest of our crew, and everyone was pretty emotional,” she said.

Wolka said these competitions teach her the value of hard work and responsibility. She loves being able to travel to different states and sightsee on the road with her family.

“I show pigs to be competitive in something we can enjoy as a family. It’s also been a great way to make friends. We’ve met so many people from close by and from many other states that we never would have if it weren’t for showing livestock,” Wolka said.

Wolka keeps busy tending to her pigs throughout the year, and in the summer, her younger sisters, Monroe, 9, and Landry Mae, 6, join her in showing sheep for the county fair. She also deals in trading livestock with other families, sometimes keeping gilts up to six to eight months at a time. Wolka likes to call it “pig shuffling.”

Now with a banner honoring her as the champion crossbred gilt and her winning pig, Thumper, by her side, she is ready to take on more competitions and further her education in the coming future.

Her future goal is to attend a junior college and be a member of a livestock judging team. While she has time to think on her career path, she knows for certain that she wants to stay involved in the livestock industry.

Wolka’s next goal for pig showing is to win the crossbred gilts division at the World Pork Expo this summer at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa. It is the world’s largest pork industry specific trade show that brings together pork producers and industry professionals.

She also hopes to make it back to her home state and show her talents at Grand Drive in the Indiana Farmers Coliseum at the Indiana State Fair.

“My advice to anyone wanting to get into the livestock show industry or are just getting started is to find people that are genuinely willing to help and guide you. We’ve been fortunate to meet people like Drake and Katelyn Hook from Iowa who raised Thumper,” she said. “I am also grateful to have people like the McCoy and Lackey families invest in me the past few years all the way back to the local families who helped us get started. You also need to be willing to outwork anyone and to just focus on the things that you can control.”