Broadcasting live from the Oklahoma Youth Expo, Farm Director KC Sheperd visited with Larry Peck, Owner/Editor of the Sentinel Leader and former owner of Ag Youth Magazine. He has been a familiar face during the show, providing pictures and coverage of OYE, previously known as the Oklahoma City Spring Livestock Show, for 56 years.
Peck remembers when it was known as the Fat Livestock Show, and Barn 3 was a former airport hangar.
He recalled the number of photographers he has used over the years saying, “At the first OYE, it was just my wife, Mary, Franke Allen, Dwayne Harrell, with the Department of Ag, and Ron Hays, were the only ones in the ring. When it was all said and done, we had the Ag Youth photo team and a lot of people in the barn and even parents and students were on the Ag Youth photo team. At one time, we were publishing fifty-thousand photos per day.”
Peck’s own children, grandson, and granddaughters also helped capture the special moments of the show. Peck retired from Ag Youth Magazine two years ago and has since purchased the Sentinel Leader, which they have made into a Youth Magazine as well.
Through the years, Peck has observed much of the history of the 110-year-old livestock show and, like many others, has mixed feelings about the destruction and replacement of the building known to some as the Big House, The Arena to others, and officially, as the Jim Norick Arena.
“As stock showers go, or back home at Sentinel, you talk about we are going to show down in The Arena,” Peck said. “It is The Arena, no matter whether you are in Phoenix or Kansas City or Denver; it is The Arena.”
Sheperd shared her memories of how any event held in the Jim Norick Arena felt like something big and noted how much more prominent OYE’s Grand Drive feels now as the limo that is driven into the arena.
“The thing about The Arena that a lot of people don’t realize is that you hear the blowers up here and you hear people scrambling and hurrying to get dressed, and it’s all go, go, go! When you get down to The Arena, it’s on!” Peck commented. “It’s real quiet and surreal, and it is on! It is time to get on it until they select a winner, and then there is a cheer. It is pretty amazing to walk down in there.”
Turning the conversation to the Night of Stars Gilt Sale which Peck covered the night before his conversation with Sheperd. “I can remember the first one that Blake started, and man has it grown!” Peck said, also revealing that he assisted as a ringman during the earlier events. “It has outgrown me! That deal is so big. They had another million-dollar sale with purebreds going back. That is just a really good deal.”
Peck emphasized the number of sponsors that support the multiple Showmanship competitions held during OYE. “It is just amazing, the number of people who volunteer their time for this week – which is really a whole year to get here. Tyler Norvell, down through all of the show staff – it is amazing, the amount of work they do to put this thing on.”
Peck has experienced the show from nearly every angle, having been an ag teacher himself who brought students to the show. “One year, we showed sixty-eight head of lambs here,” he shared. “We also showed cattle and hogs – that was before they had goats. I was lucky to have a whole set of good parents. With those good parents, come good kids, and with good kids, come good livestock. I was blessed to have good livestock.”
In all of his 30 years as an ag teacher, Peck’s students only missed getting into the premium sale in 1985. “I missed it one year, and that just haunts me to this day,” he said. “We had five grand reserves, but the ones I remember most is the kid that stood sixth. It is just amazing to watch them grow up and get sixth from where they came from. Maybe that was the only hog or sheep they had. That is what OYE is.”
Students across multiple states look forward to devoting their Spring Breaks to OYE and are rewarded with many additional activities such as The Stomp, the This Ones for the Girls event, and many others.
“It’s not cheap to come up here,” Peck pointed out. “If you bring a family up here for four or five days, it’s a vacation cost, but we are treated really well. The people in the barn treat everyone really well and they’ve got it figured out how to get in and out – I don’t know how they do it. My grandfather told me one time that it takes a long time to load 10,000 watermelons. Can you imagine loading thirty thousand animals, unloading them, then putting them back in and leaving? I don’t know how they do it. It takes an amazing crew to pull that off.”
Peck and his wife Mary will present the Grand Drive to be held at the end of the week. “Celeste Rule was the secretary of the original show, and she is still doing well, but Mary and I have taken over that presentation so we will always be here at the Grand Drive,” Peck said.
Other reasons to be present are Peck’s grandchildren showing livestock this year. Sheperd pointed out that it could be said that the Peck family was raised at the OYE because of the multiple generations of involvement with the show, and he didn’t disagree. “It actually raised Mary and I both, because I started teaching at 21, and she and I were married and this is what we did,” he said. “She was a 4-H agent.
Listen to Sheperd’s OYE Morning Minute live on the Oklahoma Farm Report Facebook Page, as well as on the OYE Facebook page and the Kennedy Ventures Facebook page.
Click here for the full schedule for the 2025 OYE. The Oklahoma Farm Report team will be snapping pictures from start to finish- and you can see them as we add them to our Flickr album for 2025- available here. If you want to look back to the 2024 OYE- click here for our pictures from last year’s event.
Our coverage of the 2025 Oklahoma Youth Expo is sponsored by Hilliary Communications. More than 60 years ago, the Hilliary Family acquired a small telephone company in rural southwest Oklahoma. Now in its third generation, the company has grown from a single exchange with just 100 access lines covering 22 square miles to now serving more than 19,000 customers in 22 counties throughout Oklahoma & Texas. The company also offers IP television service and internet speeds up to 1 Gig. Click here to learn more about Hilliary Communications.
