LUMBERTON, Texas — Danielle Courts is a Lumberton FFA student, and says hours after unloading the animals, they found out the remaining events at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo were cancelled.
"We work with them every day put a lot of money, like thousands upon thousands of dollars into these heifers. We kind of unloaded for no reason," Courts said. "And we're about to pack up and wait in line for another 15 hours."
Courts says she and other FFA students typically spend all year caring for these animals to prepare for the rodeo.
"We don't get to do as much as the other kids get to, we kind of have to sacrifice a lot to be able to do that. To be able to show, which we love," Courts said.
Eric Hartman, a building trades teacher at Vidor High, works closely with the agriculture students. He says the kids are disappointed.
"A big event like the HLSR is part of a big cycle. The money that moves through these shows, like a $5,000 animal -- it's really hard to find that kind of sponsorship and money in local shows," Hartman said.
As disappointing as it may be, Hartman says it's what's best and the safety of the students is the number one priority.
"There's a lot of people that are losing out on a tremendous amount of money because of this that had a say in cancelling this event and I'm thinking that we need to trust those people," Hartman said.