‘Eye for livestock’: South Dakota girl gets full-ride scholarship

HURON, S.D. (KELO) — A recent graduate from the Ree Heights area has obtained something many kids only dream of– a full-ride scholarship to college.

For Payton Beare, showing livestock is a family affair.

“I used to show probably 30 years ago and it was so much fun and the experience that a person requires doing that– I wanted my daughter to experience the same thing,” Payton’s Mom, Brenda Beare said.

Payton has been showing cattle since she was four. She got into judging livestock around the age of ten.

“I was kind of shy when I was a kid. I really didn’t want to do it. But my parents were like, Here, go do this,” Full Ride Livestock Judging Scholarship, Payton Beare said.

A parental push that changed her life. With her parents’ encouragement, Payton started to go to judging camps when she was young, which later led to competitions both in and out of state.

“She was able to go to the National 4-H Contest down in Kentucky for the skill-a-thon there, which then led to the quiz ball,” Brenda said.

“Two years ago when I was a sophomore, I was fortunate enough to win the State FFA contest as an individual and that kind of like got my name out there I think. And judging coaches started like reaching out to me and that’s kind of how I got it,” Payton Beat said.

While traveling has helped get Payton’s name out there, one of her mentors says that her hard work has paid off as well.

“She’s got an eye for livestock. She can talk about livestock to anybody, the way she works with young kids while she helps with livestock shows, whether she’s showing herself or helping them has been an absolute joy to watch,” Worked with Payton in 4-H & FFA, Falyn Hempel said.

“Public speaking, builds people’s confidence, like work ethic, because it is not easy. I went to Kansas City this last year and we had to judge 12 classes and get six sets of reasons. We started at 6:00 in the morning and didn’t get done until 8:00 that night,” Payton said.

With all of it leading to a full-ride scholarship to Fort Scott Community College in Kansas for Livestock Judging.

“So getting a full-ride scholarship for livestock judging is extremely tough to do. They don’t offer very many full-ride scholarships. And the fact that she was able to get one for a junior college is absolutely incredible,” Hempel said.

Making her parents and others around her proud of all that Payton’s accomplished.

“I think once she gets off to college, to the junior college and able to do livestock judging and traveling with that, I think she’s going to have lots of fun, but she’s going to really blossom into what she wants to do for life,” Brenda said.

As her and her family encourage other kids to follow their passions as well.

“I would just encourage all the kids that if they enjoy doing livestock judging to hang with it, because there’s lots of opportunities out there for those kids to take advantage of,” Brenda said.

Payton plans on studying livestock embryology in college, so that she can continue to work with cattle later in life.

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