A camera-friendly heifer strikes a pose.

The Wallowa County Stockgrowers Association is preparing to sell a herd of 20 market heifers, bred to Alan Klages’ Calving-Ease Red Angus bulls. A nice little starter herd, priced at $2,300 per head.

The money raised from the sale of the herd will go into the Stockgrowers Scholarship Fund to benefit deserving Wallowa County agriculture students for years to come.

“The proceeds of the sale will go to our heifer scholarship program where eighth-, ninth- and 10th-grade students can apply to receive a bred heifer,” Klages said. “The top-choice student receives a bred heifer, and heifer calves go to second and third place.”

Winning students actually get to go out and select the heifer they want and the Stockgrowers will pay for it.

In addition, Wallowa County Hay Growers pledged to provide hay for the first year to students who are awarded heifers.

The success of the program was illustrated recently when Anna Rinehart, daughter of Joe and Karen Rinehart of Joseph, grew her herd from one heifer she was awarded in 2011 (and one she already had purchased) to a herd she sold to pay for two years of her education in Northwest College of Wyoming, where she’s majoring in agriculture education.

“She’s been selling steers out of those cows for four years,” said Karen Rinehart. “This year she sold a heifer from her Stockgrowers cow to a seventh-grader in Lostine who will show it in FFA next year.”

“It’s a great program,” Klages said. “It teaches kids animal husbandry, responsibility and business skills all at the same time.”

The heifer program started in 2010, but the scale of this year’s fundraiser is new. Local Stockgrower Todd Nash brought the idea back from an Umatilla County Cattleman’s Association annual meeting he attended with Klages.

“They had a program they put together, where ranchers were going to donate a heifer and they ended up with 50 heifers they gave away,” Klages said.

Nash presented the idea to Wallowa County Stockgrowers and the local cattlemen quickly pledged 20 Angus and bald-face commercial heifers.

The heifers were summered on pasture on Midway, 15 miles east of Enterprise on the edge of the Zumwalt country. The Nature Conservancy plans to credit Stockgrowers back for the pasture rent as another contribution to the scholarship fund, Klages said.

The scholarship/heifer fund was additionally fattened by sales of the rockjacks built at this summer’s World Championship Rockjack Building Contest at the Wallowa County Fair. One sold at the Wallowa County Stockgrowers Banquet in August to Janie Tippet, and with add-ons resulted in a total of $1,750 for the scholarship fund. Another was sold at the 7th Annual Wallowa Resources Barn Dance in late August and brought in $3,700.

Other folks donated money directly to the scholarship fund and a dozen ranchers donated cattle for the new 20-cow herd sale.