PEOPLE: Blue ribbons and a tractor

• Ryan Rogers, who makes a habit of raising blue-ribbon cattle, did it again for this year's Washington State Spring Fair.

Rogers won the 4-H Grand Champion award for the steer he entered in the Northwest Junior Livestock Show and Sale. The animal was purchased in the auction by Grego Judith Keyser of Sammamish.

Rogers has been a frequent winner among the FFA and 4-H youth who annually prepare and show their hogs, steers and sheep during the Spring Fair in Puyallup. Rogers' raises his prize animals at his family's farm that's located between Eatonville and Graham.

Another contestant from south Pierce County, Charles Watson of Roy, won two showman awards and a reserve champion prize at this year's event.

• When the call went out for volunteers to help beautify Columbia Crest A-STEM Academy's campus, Claudia Frey answered with more than personal elbow grease. She brought some of the mechanized kind.

Frey put her farm tractor to use grading the track at the Ashford school.

That was one of the projects that were completed by 50 volunteers, including students and families, on Aug. 25-26. The work went on for three hours each day.