The South Shore News & Tribune
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Swine Show Winnings To Help Girls In Haiti
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Published: October 1, 2008
BALM - Lane Harrell has been helping raise pigs for as long as he's been able to walk and has been showing them competitively since he was 8.
"You get them when they're 8 weeks old and you raise them for four months, and then you show them," said Harrell of the typical process of preparing a pig for competition.
His most recent winner, a 261-pound pig named Barbie Q, was named grand champion during February's Florida Strawberry Festival's Youth Swine Show.
Following the show, Barbie Q was sold for $4,176 to Anthony and Debbie Gill of Fort Lonesome.
"When you have them, you have to bathe them and clean out their pens and you get a little attached to them sometimes," Harrell said. "Then you sell them and they get slaughtered - it's just the way it is."
Instead of blowing all his prize money on video games and other goodies an 11-year-old would usually covet, he donated a portion to an unexpected cause.
He gave $400 of his prize money for materials to establish a boutique in a home for high school- and college-age girls in Haiti.
The donation was organized through Promised Provision Ministries in Brandon.
"Lane told me he wanted to donate the money to a good cause, and I'd heard about this project from someone else at the ministry," said Susan Harrell, Lane's mom and donations coordinator for the ministry.
The boutique, in Leogane, about 30 miles west of Port-au-Prince, had its grand opening Sept. 13.
With the rest of the prize money in a bank account and earmarked for college, Lane hopes to keep showing pigs competitively until he graduates from high school.
He's the latest Harrell to become involved in swine shows, following in the footsteps of his brothers Jimmy, 21, and Blake, 14.
"It's been fun for the kids, and I really think it's a good opportunity for them to learn skills they're going to use for the rest the rest of their lives, like social skills in dealing with people and how to be responsible," Susan Harrell said.
GET TO KNOW
WHO: Lane Harrell
AGE: 11
LIVES: Balm
HOBBY: Raising pigs
Reporter John Ceballos can be reached at (813) 865-1555 or jceballos@tampatrib.com.
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