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Craig — Cali has that winning attitude.

You can see it in his walk — the way he prances when he enters the ring — and you can see it in his face, said Andrea Maneotis.

He has the look: confident and assured.

“He always held his ears up and kind of was just cocky,” Andrea’s mother, Karen Maneotis, said.

The fact that Cali is a blackface lamb is beside the point. He’s a winner with a swagger, and he proved it recently at the Arizona National Livestock Show.

Andrea, 13, of Craig, showed the 10-month-old lamb and took third place in junior sheep showmanship at the national event.

This wasn’t her only achievement, though.

Her name is scattered throughout a list of top 10 finishes in multiple categories: third place in a junior market lamb class, seventh place in junior swine showmanship, and seventh and eighth places in junior market goat, to name a few.

The Arizona National Livestock Show is just one stop on Andrea’s jam-packed annual itinerary.

She also competes at the Moffat County Fair, the National Western Stock Show, the Colorado Junior Swine Association circuit, the Rocky Mountain Jackpot Show series, and the list goes on.

“We really don’t have a break all year long,” said Karen, with the exception of a two-month window between Stock Show and getting new animals in March.

How then, does the Craig Middle School eighth-grader fit extracurricular activities like sports into her hectic schedule?

The answer is simple: She doesn’t.

For Andrea, there is no volleyball, basketball, track or cheerleading. Working with animals is her after-school activity, and she wants no other.

“Some people think that’s weird,” she said, “but it’s just the same as any other sport or hobby.”

It’s not a pastime for the uncommitted.

Andrea puts about two hours a day, sometimes more, into feeding and training her animals, she said. Preparing Cali for the Arizona National Livestock Show alone was a five-month project.

For Andrea, though, the rewards have been rich.

She’s the two-time champion goat showman at the National Western Stock Show and last year’s reserve champion pig showman at the Arizona National Livestock Show, she said.

Andrea hasn’t stuck with the hobby for years just for trophies or bragging rights, though. The main reason she’s chosen livestock over more traditional pastimes like sports goes back to the animals.

“I like all their personalities and how they are like your friends,” she said.