Yes, you read it correctly. My pet pig Frankie, got out of going to school. She didn’t fake a temperature by putting the thermometer in hot water. She didn’t pretend to have a sour stomach by moaning and groaning. She didn’t even try to convince me with one of those “I’m so sick’ voices our kids use to get their way. Frankie just flat out refused to go to school.

Before I get too far and leave you thinking I’ve lost a few marbles, I’d better explain why I have a pet pig in the first place. A couple of years ago, when I getting ready to release my newest children’s book “A Hog Ate My Homework!”, I thought a pig would be a great way to help present the stories at schools. My wife was convinced I had been working too hard, both at work at KWQC and with my children’s books which help raise money to send children with cancer to camp. My thought was that having a pig come out at the end of the assembly and walk around to the beat of the song “Who Let The Hogs Out?-Who?Who? Who?” would create a memorable moment that the children would never forget.

Frankie is officially on her ‘retirement tour’ — kind of like Cher did at the end of her live performance tour — only Frankie is a little less revealing and a lot more conservative. But we had an appearance commitment that had been in the planning for months. A big 4 -schools-in-one-day booking in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. I had to take the day off work and get ready for the long drive with a pig as my co-pilot. That was when the trouble began.

The night before a school visit is always a busy time. Not only do I have to check the wagon for all the props I need, check the quantity of dum-dum pops to giveaway at the end (I would need about 1400 for this big day), and check the directions and time of each school visit —— but I also need to prep the pig.

How do you prep a pig? I’m glad you asked. Frankie’s ‘room’ is actually kept a little cleaner than my teenaged son’s. Problem is — Frankie doesn’t take long showers like he does. In fact, she’d much rather roll in the mud or dirt than roll into the bathroom and get ready to impress. So, it’s up to me to convince my 90 pound pig to get into a big bucket of warm water. Usually I convince her to come into the house with something she can’t refuse—food! She is a pig after all. A sliced apple seems to do the trick. (I know what you are picturing, a pig with an apple in its mouth spread out on a platter.)

I lure Frankie into the house with the help of my wife Pam. I then have to try to get behind the pig, pick her up and lower her wiggling belly and four legs into an oversized storage bucket partly filled with warm water. She generally grumps a bit until I drop some apples and pig pellets into the water for her to hunt down. That serves two purposes—keeps her busy and cleans her snout.

But on this day—the scrub brush and dandruff shampoo we use to soothe her dry white skin to make it pink again—would never make it onto her back. We noticed she had a cut behind her ear. We saw her rubbing against a tree stump, the corner of our wooden deck, and our lawn chairs. The hot weather was making her skin dry and itchy. But what I didn’t see, until we got very close, was that she had actually cut a small hole behind her right ear and it started to bleed pretty good. She was rubbing it, not with her hands of course, because she has no hands. So she uses her sharp hooves.

My wife is a nurse. She cares for people everyday. But as gentle as she is, she is no match for a pig that is hot, injured and definitely not in the mood for a bath! But I knew we had to clean the wound and at least make sure it doesn’t get infected.

My usual open the door and hold-out-an-apple trick did not work. In fact, it took me two long, tedious, sweaty hours to finally corner her to get her into the garage where we had set up the makeshift bath. Even then she started running from us knocking things off the walls and creating a scene. Finally I snuck up behind and did the big pick-up-the-pig scoop. But instead of settling into the water and eating the snacks—she was kicking and screaming like a two-year that just learned there is a magical word ‘no’ they can use as they throw a temper tantrum.

At risk of losing part of my anatomy to flying hooves and swinging headbutts—I relented. Frankie was not in the mood for a bath—which meant she would not be going to school the next day. I surrendered, put up the white flag and emailed my contact with the news. She thankfully never told the schools about the surprise pig visit so we were in the clear. Once Frankie settled down back in her pig- house half buried in her straw, I slowly and carefully applied some medicine to her injured ear. The next day, another unusually hot spring day of 80 plus degrees, I drove to my school visits without my pig. Instead, I had some videos of her galloping around in the yard showing her usual sparkling personality. My wife made a mud hole out back so she could roll around and get even dirtier—and of course keep her cool. It was just what the doctor ordered. Within a day the combination of medicine and mudpack worked their magic—she was back to normal!

I guess is only fitting that a guy who wrote a book titled A Hog Ate My Homework! would end up having a pig that refuses to go to school!

Many of us drive by corn and soybean fields everyday—but in our busy world we don’t always have the chance to talk to our children about it. That is where ag in the classroom comes in.

The brakes of the buses grinding to a halt were the first sounds. The swoosh sound that followed forced the bus doors open. And then, there they were—hundreds of Quad City kids heading straight for us!

“The students are here,” said Kristen Veto, the fantastic education person (not her technical title) at John Deere Commons. “Everyone to their positions.”

My position was in a room by the metro stop. The event was AgXPerience, the brain child of DeAnne Bloomberg and The Rock Island County Farm Bureau.

“We started AgXPerience five years ago in response to the rising interest in visiting a farm by teachers and their classrooms.” Bloomberg explains. “The teachers were growing more interested in agriculture because of their involvement in our Ag in the Classroom supplemental material.”

That is where I come in with my children’s book, A Hog Ate My Homework! DeAnne was not only my extra set of eyes checking my ag stats before I went to press, but she also shared my work with her contacts at the state level of ag in the classroom. Those creative folk came up with a lesson plan around my book. From art projects of making a wagon like Willie’s, to math problems based on recipes from the chapter on making pie, a full series of interactive materials all drawn from my little book! (You can see the lessons on the ag in the classroom link at the top of my website www.willieswagon.com)

“Our membership feels very strongly that today’s students need to understand why we need farmers,” Bloomberg added.

You may be surprised to hear some of the things the children say to me when I present the story of a little boy that discovers how farmers feed the world. Many of us drive by corn and soybean fields everyday—but in our busy world we don’t always have the chance to talk to our children about it. That is where ag in the classroom comes in.

“Students and teachers are just in awe of how much work goes into growing a crop or raising an animal,” Bloomberg said. That is one of the reasons I wrote my book, and built a school presentation plan around the idea of hard work and the rewards that come from it.

But, as we know, if we suggest to our elementary students that they are about to LEARN LESSONS or are about to be TAUGHT SOMETHING—their interest can wane or disappear entirely. That is when it is time to bring out the big guns——–THE PIG!

In these pages I have written about presenting at schools and even at retirement communities and churches with my pet pig Frankie. She can’t make it to every event—but she was at AgXPerience! After four hours of presenting, you can bet I was concerned that even though she had had some breaks along the way, there was a very good chance my pet pig just may relieve herself at any time! She made it through, and she helped the children ‘learn lessons’ without even knowing it! They will also never forget the pig they met and touched, and for a moment chased around part of the John Deere Commons complex!

Of course, most of AgXPerience is certainly not about me. I was like one booth in a farmer’s market. The volunteers and staff of both John Deere and the Farm Bureau did an incredible job organizing, handling and surviving busloads of kids from school all over the area. Half of the 400 or so went to the farm first and then to John Deere Commons. Then they made the big switch. The children took home lessons they will never forget—an experience that will last a lifetime.

I had a feeling when we were starting with my first children’s book, “Willie’s Wagon,” that there would be interest from moms, dads, children and schools. That interest continued to grow when I came out with the second Willie’s Wagon Adventure- “A Hog Ate My Homework!” In fact, so much interest, I have now visited more that 100 schools in the area sharing the messages in the books.

But it was grandmas that were our first big book fans. Finding a local book that has some important moral and ethical lessons—and supports something like sending children to cancer camp-struck a cord with this community. Now that same community is reaching out in other ways.

Recently, I have been getting invitations to talk with groups of seniors. I had a wonderful luncheon with a group called LIFT just a few days ago. That is a program put together by Runge to help people dealing with a loss get together in a social environment. I was moved by their kindness, compassion and support for each other and the community through
various projects and events.

I have also been getting more and more requests to visit retirement communities. My son Adam – the eight-year-old inspiration behind writing the books—joined me at Silvercrest in Davenport. We shared a video of the cancer camp we are supporting, talked about how it all started—and yes, brought in Frankie, the pot-bellied pig, to say ‘hi’. Afterwards, we sold just about every book we brought in! That has been the case at most of the places we have been visiting. This community has already helped generate tens of thousands of dollars to support the Heart Connection Cancer Camp!

Garner Farms welcomed us in too to talk with their assisted living members. Adam joined me there too. I think he is learning how to steal the limelight from his dad! He really enjoys meeting and talking to our seniors. And I can tell by the sparkle and their eyes that many of them enjoy seeing a little boy full of energy proudly showing how he is making a difference.

Our senior community is just another reminder to me of why my family decided to call the Quad Cities “home” more than a decade ago. They are the backbone of where we have been, where we are and where we are going. I continue to get invitations from Clinton to Prophetstown, from Aledo to Dewitt—and I plan to visit as many as I can. I welcome your group to contact us about a visit too.

We have a simple goal that has lead us for the past 2 years—to inspire healthy kids to make a difference, while supporting sick children along the way. And if we can brighten the day a bit for our seniors along the way—that’s a big bonus!

To see some videos of what we are about visit www.willieswagon.com or send me an email at gary@willieswagon.com.