Sutej family takes home annual prize
CONNOQUENESSING TWP — For Mike and Shana Sutej, the Butler Farm Show is a yearly chance to show off what they and their two children, 14-year-old Sabrina and 11-year-old Paul, can do with the 7-acre property in Clinton Township where they live.
And the Sutejs do a lot. The family raises pigs, sheep and chickens, and has been heavily involved in 4-H since Sabrina and Paul became old enough to participate. They've come a long way since then, and this year the children helped their parents win the 2017 Eagle Bowl. It is the first time the family, who lives at 122 Glade Mill Road, has won the honor, which recognizes the family most involved in the farm show.
The Eagle Bowl is sponsored by the Butler Eagle.
Shana Sutej said her children have always exhibited an interest in agriculture and animal husbandry. Their desire to get involved prompted her to step in and fill a void for 4-H in the Saxonburg area, starting a Cloverbuds group called the Saxonburg Sprouts that provided an outlet for children between the ages of 5 and 8.
Shana, who loves gardening in her spare time, said being involved in her children's growth and participation through 4-H is important to her. That's what prompted her to help found the Sprouts, and it has kept her involved through the years as Sabrina and Paul have grown up.
“I love watching them learn and try something new — especially outside of their comfort zone — and grow. It's a good thing,” she said. “They would be in more, but because of conflicts in scheduling, they basically stick with the livestock club.”
Still, despite strains on her schedule Sabrina also enjoys arts-and-crafts, and both Sutej children entered photographs in the farm show's youth competition this year, in addition to their animal exhibits and showmanship duties.
Shana said the news that her family had won the 2017 Eagle Bowl shocked her. This is the first year the family has entered the contest, Sutej said, and she only did so after friends at the farm show urged her and said the contest wasn't only for full-time farmers.
“I always thought it was for people who had farms or had been in the farming industry for years, and people kind of redirected me and said 'no, it's for everybody,'” she said.
The Sutejs aren't professional farmers, per se, but their farmette is a throwback to Mike's youth growing up on a family farm and working to help on his neighbors' dairy farm. Sutej and his parents raised a flock of sheep on 35 acres until he was 12 and the animals were sold because the family no longer had the time to care for them.
But Sutej never stopped loving the life of a farmhand, and went on working at a neighbor's dairy farm as a teenager. As an adult, he's continued that work at a Saxonburg-area farm that specializes in beef cattle, and said he enjoys taking his children with him to work every now and then.
At home and at the farm show, Sutej said, farming and raising animals is something his family does together. He enjoys helping his children setting up animal pens and sales and show rings at the farm show, and this year served for the first time on the show's sales committee. The family made a dish featuring lamb for the farm show's sale night dinner this year.
“We do this as a family,” Mike said. “And this (the farm show) is our yearly vacation. We bring a camper up here and stay for a week and have a good family time out.”
It's essentially a working vacation for the Sutejs, with the children showing hogs, lambs and chickens in addition to their 4-H projects and pursuits.
This year Sabrina won two first-place awards in the youth pictures category, she said, and has focused her time in animal husbandry on lambs and hogs. But her favorite part of farm show week is the camaraderie.
“Some of them, you don't get to see at all until one week a year,” she said. “It's a lot of fun. You get to see all these different animals — and there's so much to do: rides, animals and food.”
