Showing sheep takes skills, patience and, more often than not, sheer willpower.

Kayla McConkey, 17, has shown sheep at the Northwest Montana Fair and Rodeo for three years through Kalispell FFA. In all that time, she has never had a well-behaved lamb.

“He really likes to chew on things,” McConkey said of her current lamb, Clyde.

At that very moment, Clyde had the paper tag from a folding chair clenched in his teeth. McConkey wedged her fingers between Clyde’s lips in an attempt to extricate the tag, but the lamb scrambled away from her grasp.

The brief struggle attracted the attention of fellow FFA student, Dezaray Herman, a few stalls down inside the Trade Center at the Flathead County Fairgrounds.

“OK, I have a really quick question for you,” she called to McConkey before launching

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