FFA President Shows Market Lambs at the Fair

By Anna Pier

17-year-old Jaqueline Strand, President of the Sonoma Valley High chapter of Future Farmers of America (FFA), will show two market lambs at the 2026 Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa the week of August 6 – 8. This year she will bring Chad, a Dark Crossbred lamb, and Brad, a Hampshire lamb.

Jaqueline has been showing market lambs at the Fair since she was ten. She was in 4-H (Head, Heart, Hands, Health) when she began showing her lambs.

A formidable competitor, Jaqueline wears with pride the handsome silver and turquoise belt buckle that she earned in 2022 when her lamb was designated “Reserve Supreme Championship.” Her mother, Kathy Strand, said that it was “a shocking year.” Her eighth-grade daughter, who would be an entering freshman at Sonoma Valley High, also placed First in Showmanship that year.

Jaqueline, an entering senior at Sonoma High, will be applying to four-year colleges this fall. After her bachelor’s degree, she plans to study veterinary medicine to become a vet. Asked what she likes best about going to the Fair, she replied she likes watching the animal shows and being with the animals. Her mother likes to watch the judges, and “figure out what they are looking for.”

The lambs Chad and Brad were born in Iowa, to a breeder that the Strand family knows and worked with when he was local, before moving to Iowa. Both lambs arrived in Sonoma in February, and Jaqueline has raised them at her family’s farm on Hyde Road in Sonoma. The lambs were shorn on August 1 and can be seen wearing jackets  to protect them from the sun.

Jaqueline’s mother will drive her up in the family camper, where they will stay while Jaqueline is working with her lambs over the first days of the Fair. They will then come home, but the lambs will have been purchased at the auction, and remain there for their new owners.

Sonoma Valley High FFA students, under the direction of ag teacher Constance Jones, will exhibit animals at this year’s Fair in these categories: breeding beef, market steers, breeding swine, market hogs, breeding rabbits, call ducks, rabbit meat pens, market goats, dairy goats, dairy cattle and market lambs. The Sonoma Valley Sun print edition of August 20 will feature these students and their animals.