Date: Fri 18-Jul-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Sepe-Nonnewaug-sheep-FFA

Full Text:

She Shears Sheep! Nonnewaug Graduate, Erin Sepe, Aims For Agribusiness Career

(with photos)

BY DOROTHY EVANS

While tending her sheep, a young Sandy Hook woman named Erin Sepe is enjoying

life and making the most of every opportunity that comes her way.

As a longtime leader in 4-H and then FFA (Future Farmers of America), Erin has

already made her mark and she is setting some pretty ambitious future goals

for herself -not the least of which is to be US Secretary of Agriculture some

day.

That might come about, she hopes, after a long and productive career in

agribusiness, helping regulate international trade and policy.

Erin is currently president of the Woodbury FFA chapter and she placed first

in the State Prepared Public Speaking Contest last year. She has been awarded

several FFA scholarships.

Next, she would like to become a state FFA officer, earn her American FFA

degree and run for a national FFA office.

"That's very hard," Erin said about the task of obtaining a national FFA post,

speaking during an interview held at her home July 14.

The competition, especially from Texas, is fierce.

"Nobody from Connecticut has been elected since 1960," Erin added.

But her teachers at Nonnewaug and others who know Erin have no doubt she'll

succeed.

"Erin is the type of student and person that a teacher would like to clone,"

Nonnewaug agricultural education instructor, William Davenport, said in a

letter of recommendation he wrote about Erin to the University of Connecticut

in Storrs. Erin was eventually admitted to UConn on a full, four-year

scholarship.

"Ever since she was a freshman, she has immersed herself in the FFA (Future

Farmers of America, Woodbury chapter) and took advantage of everything it had

to offer," Mr Davenport wrote.

Toddy Hill Road Sheep Farm

Erin lives with her parents, Peter and Caroline Sepe, and younger sister,

Hilary, on a four-acre property that is perched on a sunny knoll off Toddy

Hill Road.

The family moved to Connecticut and Sandy Hook when Erin was about to enter

the seventh grade, leaving Wethersfield, N.Y., where she grew up and where her

father was manager of a 1,200-acre working sheep farm.

"There's no better way to grow up than on a farm. It's been good for me," Erin

said, as she led a visitor on a tour.

"I'm not afraid of hard work. I get up and go out to the barn. The sheep have

to be fed at 6 am and at 4 pm every day," she said.

This routine never waivers whether she is in school or out, not even when it's

Christmas morning and the family hasn't opened presents yet.

But the discipline and routine have produced results, giving Erin a real sense

of satisfaction. She has the confidence to set goals and she expects to meet

them.

No doubt, the sheep are very demanding in their way.

Besides the sheep owned by the Sepe family, there are several that are leased

from other owners, which means that during the summer, Erin is tending a flock

of 30 or so.

They have to be fed, vaccinated, sheared, clipped, halter-trained and taken to

shows.

"For my work, I get prize money. The owners get the publicity," Erin said.

In the fall, the leased sheep go back to their owners, somewhat lessening her

work load.

Hilary Sepe, who will be a junior at Nonnewaug this fall, helps out, as do Mr

and Mrs Sepe. It is definitely a joint enterprise.

"They are a great family!" said Newtown's state representative Julia Wasserman

recently.

Over the past several years, Ms Wasserman has asked the Sepes to come to her

Walnut Tree Hill Road farm in Sandy Hook to shear her cashmere goats and trim

their hooves.

"Erin has set real, true goals for herself and I know she'll meet them," Ms

Wasserman said.

Isabel Goes To School

A real barn yard welcome is offered any visitor following Erin into the barn.

Brown chickens scurry out from underfoot, Willy the horse nudges closer to his

paddock fence gate and a sheep dog penned nearby barks frantically, hoping to

be let out.

It is a warm summer morning and the sun's heat is gaining in intensity. The

barn offers a shady sanctuary.

Erin's arrival inside the cool barn is greeted by a chorus of "baas and maas"

by a dozen or so very wooly sheep that come in all colors from silvery or

creamy gray to brown to dusky black.

One lamb, not old enough to be a sheep yet, immediately pushes up to the front

of the stall and stands on hind legs to greet Erin by planting its two front

feet in a feed trough - the better to see her.

"That's Isabel, my bottle baby," Erin said, with affection.

Isabel was born February 10, one of twin lambs. Isabel's mother and her sister

didn't make it, Erin said, so Isabel had to be fed every two hours, day and

night.

This meant Erin had to take the little lamb to Nonnewaug High School with her

during those early weeks in February and March, to feed her.

"I did it during study hall and between classes, and I stored her milk

replacement formula in the teacher's refrigerator," Erin recalled, adding she

had to remind the teachers not to use Isabel's milk in their coffee.

"Everyone helped. They made Isabel a part of the lessons," Erin said, noting

that the teachers and administration at Nonnewaug were like family. The

support for the agricultural students was always there.

Nonnewaug Agricultural Program

Nonnewaug High School is one of the state's best known agricultural schools,

also offering a general four-year curriculum of studies.

It draws students from nearby towns like Newtown, Southbury, Brookfield and

Oxford.

"Our ag center is state-of-the-art," said Erin, referring to the Ellis Clark

Agricultural Education Center where students can choose from a variety of

courses including horticulture, veterinary science, conservation and

agricultural production.

In 1995, Erin traveled to Hartford with state agriculture secretary and

Newtown resident Shirley Ferris to urge Governor John Rowland not to cut the

state's agricultural program funds to schools like Nonnewaug.

"It's really valuable. We're not just being taught to be farmers, but we're

being raised in the agricultural tradition to be vets, landscapers, horse

trainers, aquaculturists, to go into marine biology and genetics," Erin said

in passionate defense.

The upshot of their lobbying effort and visit to the governor was that the

program was not cut as threatened.

Shear Fun

It was Monday morning when Erin planned to "slick-shear" one of her sheep for

an upcoming fair the next weekend in North Stonington.

She had selected a very wooly looking, four-year-old "breeding ram" from the

flock, and led him out by his halter.

As she lifted him onto a low table and secured his head into a noose to keep

him from moving, she talked to him in reassuring tones, never moving her hand

from his back and flank.

"This is Hans. He has a brother named Franz after the "Saturday Night Live"

characters, because they are so muscle-bound," Erin said.

Hans seemed surprisingly calm as she wielded the electric shears, working from

back to front, pulling the skin tight with her other hand to insure a smooth

cut.

"He's a Texel breed," she said, explaining that Texels are known for their

excellent muscle condition and wide loins.

After a day spent shearing sheep, Erin said her arm felt like it was still

vibrating even when she had finished. But her hands were always "nice and

soft."

"It's the lanolin in the wool," she said, and she spread apart a section of

Hans' fleece to show the long crinkly fibers of wool, which she said the

weavers especially love to work with.

When asked whether her association with her sheep had led her to become a

vegetarian, Erin replied, "Not on your life."

"I eat lamb when I know where it's been and how it's grown, with nothing done

to it that isn't right," she said.

As she finished the shearing, a thick pile of wool lay on the table and Hans,

looking newly pinkish and naked, well-groomed but definitely smaller, was led

back to the barn by Erin's sister, Hilary, who had helped to hold his head.

Erin's eyes sparkled as she mentioned the upcoming Stonington Fair where she

would undoubtedly see her "fair buddies," the former 4-H and statewide FFA

chapter members whom she'd gotten to know at the various shows over the years.

After a series of fairs, she was looking forward to the Big E in Enfield,

Mass., taking place around September 20.

Then there would be a whole new group of friends to meet at UConn, and

learning more about the field of agribusiness.

It was a sunny day in mid-July and life was looking good, as Isabel happily

trailed around at Erin's heels.