Marion County Technical Center students show off their products at the Ham, Bacon and Egg show
Mar. 7—RACHEL — It's a process.
That's what John Postlethwait, agriculture teacher and Future Farmers of America advisor said of the products available at the annual Ham, Bacon and Eggs show held Friday at marion County Technical Center.
The process is part of the supervised agricultural experience program and is a way to hone some of the skills the students learn in class in real world situations.
"They'll get their pigs somewhere between July and August and they'll raise them up until about October," said Postlethwait.
When the fall rolls in, the pigs are butchered and commercially inspected. The butchered pigs come back to North Marion and are slow cured to become what's called West Virginia Country Cured Ham or West Virginia Country Cured Bacon. Eggs are laid by chickens a couple weeks before the show.
"The whole process of the hams and bacons takes about 70 days of curing and a few other stages so it's about 90-100 days all told," said Postlethwait
As the items are auctioned off, the money goes back to the students. Most of the time that money does one of two things.
"It goes back into their enterprise so they can do another pig next year or more pigs or whatever. If not, I do have some college students here. They're allowed to show for a couple years after to achieve their [degree] hopefully in FFA," he said.
Some money will go towards scholarship to help put students through college. Postlethwait said it's all for the students — he simply provides the knowledge and facilities and the kids do the rest.
"You don't really know what's going to happen with it until about two days before when they finally get smoked they finally get final trimming done on them. Then you start to see who's gonna be on top and who's not," said Postlethwait.
He said it's often a real close game and the students get competitive. The students buy their own pigs. If students don't have access to farmland, the school will lease space in the school barn.
"Some kids do raise them at home. The pigs come from various places. The ones I use here at the school I help the kids acquire them up from Waterford, Ohio," said Postlethwait.
The students do learn some processing skills. He said any of the students could walk into any deli counter or butcher shop and go right to work because they know how to run slicers, scales and smokers.
"They can do all kinds of different things that the average person cannot, but this one is also about preserving history. This is something that our settlers would have done to preserve their product going West," said Postlethwait.
Andrew Lyle was one of the students who preserved a ham and bacon and also had eggs in the mix. He said he got his pigs from Virginia and raised them on his farm. He began feeding them at the beginning of June. By October, they were salt cured, trimmed and put in a smoker.
Lyle had a bid out on his bacon for $1,000. With eight pounds of bacon, that's $125 a pound. He said this is the second time he's raised pigs.
"It feels pretty good to accomplish it. Definitely when you try to do it all yourself," said Lyle.
He said the students try to help each other out as best as they possibly can. He said the most challenging thing about the process was cutting the bacon thick enough.
"You're never going to have a bacon ham and a hog ham. You normally have to do two hogs to get it," said Lyle.
Hayley Ford showed off her eggs Friday and said it was her first year participating. She said she knew a lot more about the hams and bacon but she wanted to try eggs. She said she's had chickens every since she was little so it came easy to her.
"Brown eggs are usually the famous eggs to look at but it's mainly all on the inside, and how they're shaped," she said.
She said when taking care of her chickens, she babies them. She also said she found a trick that if chickens are fed cat food they lay more eggs and really enjoy it. She said getting reserve for her first year, which essentially is second place, was exciting.
She said in raising ham and bacon, she enjoyed learning more about the pigs and what's good for them when being raised.
"I'm glad we actually got together and can show off our work," she said.
Reach Sarah Marino at 304-367-2549
