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Spanish Fork Mayor Mike Mendenhall, second from left, poses with others during the 2024 Utah State Junior Livestock Show.

Courtesy Spanish Fork City

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Spanish Fork Mayor Mike Mendenhall, center, poses with others during the 2024 Utah State Junior Livestock Show.

Courtesy Spanish Fork City

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Spanish Fork Mayor Mike Mendenhall

Courtesy Spanish Fork City

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This year we celebrated 100 years of the Utah State Junior Livestock Show in Spanish Fork.

I grew up just outside of the Spanish Fork city limits in the farming community of Palmyra. My siblings, cousins and I didn’t have an option when it came to hauling hay in the summer. Grandpa Gull needed the help, and we were it! If we were ever going uptown, it was for school, ball games, grocery shopping, medical care or the stock show every spring.

In Spanish Fork, we are striving to build and maintain a small-town feel with right-sized amenities. This is a tough balance when our city is growing fast with both residents and businesses! For better or worse, the secret is out about Spanish Fork, and people love our area. Celebrating agriculture, including a century of the Junior Livestock Show, is one of the important things to help us remain “small.”

Congrats to all the kids from all over Utah that came uptown last week. I am impressed by your work ethic, talents and abilities. I look forward to the next 100 years of stock shows in Spanish Fork, regardless of the population in our great city.

Find whatever makes your city “small” or unique, and don’t just hold onto it — grow it. That’s what we’ve been doing in Spanish Fork since we had 5,000 residents in 1924 and will continue to do with our 45,000 residents a century later.