Proud of my dad Don for this letter to the editor, regarding the upcoming pig wrestling (!) event at their local 4-H Fair this summer. Yes, that is really a thing … medieval, barbaric, and classless as it sounds …

So ashamed that such a cruel activity involving children and animals is occurring in this town where I grew up. Horrifying. And sad.

This just in! Someone has started a petition – please sign and share here:  https://www.change.org/p/whitley-county-4h-fair-please-cancel-all-future-pig-wrestling-events?just_created=true

Read Don’s letter originally posted here.

If you would like to offer your feedback to the fair, encouraging them to look at alternative activities, please visit their Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/wc4hfair?fref=ts

Learn more about petition efforts to cancel similar events down the road in Muncie, Indiana here and Stephensville, Wisconsin here. Other Nations offers a great overview of how detrimental pig wrestling is to all participants here.

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Don’s letter …

Eliminating the pig wrestling event at the Whitley County 4-H Fair 2015

The four values of …

• Head – managing, thinking
• Heart – relating, caring
• Hands – giving, working
• Health – being, living

… are not reflected in the Pig Wrestling Event to be held this summer at the Whitley County 4-H Fair.

The 4-H Vision is “a world in which youth and adults learn, grow and work together as catalysts for positive change.” The Pig Wrestling Event does not reflect positive change.

There is a ground swell of media attention decrying pig wrestling events around the country. Our Whitley County 4-H Fair can avoid being swept up in the media blitz and inevitable growing publicity which surrounds the welfare of all participants – be they two-footed or four-footed.

The comments which are being leveled at this event center around the thoughts that pig scrambles (wrestling) teach the wrong lessons. Pig Wrestling teaches our children that it is O.K. to manhandle animals (“Let’s go be mean to pigs!”), to chase them, to scare them, and to hurt them – and it is all in “good fun.” Any veterinarian will tell us that this event causes fear, stress, and undue pain to these docile creatures – and it is clearly abuse.

What alternative events could replace Pig Wrestling? Some suggestions are – human mud wrestling, mud football, bicycle races, art contests, paint ball tag, water gun tag, archery contests, cooking contests – all things that encourage using your talents … not violence.

Our community needs to discuss this topic and take a proactive stance leading the way to eliminate this event from the 2015 Whitley County 4-H Fair. This decision is an opportunity to set an example of compassion and will reflect positively on our Whitley County 4-H Fair.

We are the species with imagination, rationality and moral choice – and that is why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect all living creatures.

Don Sexton
Columbia City, IN

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Postscript …

We love this suggestion from pal Jimmy Rhoades …

“You know what would be cool? Every place that cancels the pig wrestling event sets up a (supervised) pet-a-pig booth. Feed a pig a carrot! Snuggle a pig! Scratch a pig behind the ears! Let’s not just deny one experience, let’s replace it with one that will expand empathy for a very cute, very intelligent fellow creature.”

Amen, Jimmy. Amen.

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Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital) In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.