My name is Hayden Schroeder, and I grew up in the small town of Zephyr, Texas. I help manage my family’s show goat operation alongside my mom and dad, Deana and Jamie Smith. I grew up showing sheep and goats competitively at the state and national level, which helped introduce me to livestock judging in the beginning. I grew up knowing I wanted to stand in the ring with a microphone one day, so I asked my mom how to do it. She took me to my local 4-H office in the 6th grade, where I met Nick Gonzalez. He helped push me and another one of my current teammates, Blaze Cozart, to get started in judging. We traveled many miles representing Brown County and learned a lot along the way! I then continued my career at Black Hawk East under the coaching of Blake Bloomberg, which was as good of a way to start my collegiate judging career as I could imagine. I learned that winning at this level isn’t easy, and you have to
dedicate a lot of your life to compete. After Black Hawk, I decided to come back home to Texas and join the Texas Tech judging team. Coaches Skyler Scotten and Kase Lerow have believed in me and pushed me as hard as I’ve ever been pushed. I’ve always looked up to Skyler and Kase, even way before I knew I’d be judging under them. It’s been an incredible experience being able to learn under two of the truly great livestock minds of my generation, and I hope some of their knowledge rubs off on me. My teammates in Lubbock have become my best friends; it’s a great group of people that I know will be big parts of my life even after our collegiate judging careers are over. This year I had the privilege of earning high individual at the National Western. It’s an absolute honor to be able to come back to a place that I grew up showing, and be able to show how my role has progressed, even in the same arena where I was named Champion Lamb and Reserve Goat before! ●
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