KATY, Texas - Pep rallies at schools are usually for the athletes. But Katy High School is getting ready to celebrate a very different group of national champions.
It's hard to eat chicken around Conley Grimet, twins Sara and Alyssa Aycock or Victoria Sokso.
Even with eggs, they're so picky, someone gave them a plaque. They are national champions, and Katy High School's first.
Every year in Indianapolis, 39 state poultry judging champs look over live chickens, eggs, turkey and chicken carcasses, even cooked pieces in competition sponsored by Tyson Foods and others.
“Any and everything about a chicken, they have to know it,” said Jacob Price, Katy High School agriculture science teacher.
After school, they study encyclopedia-size books. Price saw his team know enough to have degrees.
So after all that hard work to win, tears made sense. What's next may not.
“They were discouraged at first,” Price said.
Grimet's voice belonged in choir, but her heart wanted friendships her older brother only found in FFA.
“They had such a tight bond,” Grimet said.
So Grimet tuned in to poultry judging with Sokso and the Aycock twins.
"Four of the smartest kids I've ever met in my entire life,” Price said.
That first year, Grimet had doubts.
"I wanted to give up, because I didn't think I was good enough,” she said.
They lost a lot.
"I told them give it time. It doesn't happen overnight,” Price said. “Poultry judging is so much knowledge and so much skill."
So they studied harder, three to four hours a day, five times a week.
As their trophies piled up, so did dreams.
"I want to be an elementary music teacher,” Grimet said.
Grimet's pitch-perfect gift is singing. She plans to use it to make a living.
Of her teammates, already in college at Stephen F. Austin, none study poultry science or plan careers around chicken. Judging was simply their key ingredient to making Grade-A memories.
“Just having this connection that no one will understand but us and a bond that will never be taken away from us,” Grimet said.