Tucker Williams’ day started with a major headache.

It ended with a massive handshake.

The former brought with it a lesson learned for the Kingfisher High School freshman.

The latter earned him a banner, a belt buckle and some perspective.

“I have to work even harder now,” he said.

••• Hard work is nothing new for Williams, the son of Chelsea and JR Williams.

Outside of school, he plays football and shows pigs.

One eats up a good bit of his summer and fall.

The other chews up the rest of his time.

“I’m up here for about two hours every day after school,” said Williams on Monday as he was cleaning a pen for one of seven pigs his family owns.

Williams was doing his work inside the Kingfisher FFA pig barn, which sits just west of the high school.

With the new addition, Kingfisher FFA Co-Adviser Tyler Gradert said the facility can now house more than 50 pigs.

And heading into the 2024 Kingfisher County Spring Livestock Show, Williams knew he had three pretty solid exhibits for the swine show.

Of the seven, his younger sister, Sawyer, a 9-year-old showing for the first year at county, would exhibit three and Williams would do the same.

His barrows were a Yorkshire, a crossbreed and the one he thought was the best, his Hampshire.

And that was the first one to hit the show ring on Tuesday.

It came as no surprise to Williams when the judge picked his Hamp to win its class.

The surprise came after that.

As is customary, officials loaded his pig on the scales.

The card said it weighed 226 pounds.

The scales read 250.

His pig was disqualified. “I was mad because we thought he was the best of the ones we brought,” Williams said. The mistake had come earlier that morning when all of the show’s pigs were weighed in order to put them in their proper classes within each breed. When Tucker relayed the weights for his pigs to his mother, the Hamp’s true weight got lost in the communication and the wrong weight was written down. “Somehow between Tuck and myself, we made a mistake even though we always double- and sometimes triple-check them,” said Chelsea.

The - pardon the pun weight of the mistake wasn’t lost on the Williamses.

“That was the pig we had our money on to win, so it was pretty devastating to see it all go away.”

The hours spent in the pig barn walking the pig, washing the pig, feeding the pig and cleaning its pen were wiped away by a mistake.

“To see the anguish in your kid who had worked so hard and it all went away so fast because of a mistake….” Chelsea said.

But Williams also didn’t have much time to sulk.

Just a few minutes later, he was back in the ring with his York.

The judge also tabbed that one first in its class.

To the scales it went. “Oh yeah, I was worried,” Williams said.

This one was the correct weight.

Williams’ York went on to win breed champion.

Then his cross won its class…had the correct weight…and was also named breed champion.

“So I almost had three breed champions,” Williams said.

Although that didn’t happen, he did still have two pigs in the grand drive.

The judge looked over all the breed champions, then turned on his microphone.

As the judge was wrap-ping up his thoughts, Williams walked by with his cross…the judge put out his hand to shake Williams’ hand.

His cross was the grand champion barrow.

“I had figured after I had won the crosses that it might have a chance,” Williams said. “But I was still shaken up a bit.”

In a span of a couple of hours, Williams had gone from despair to delight.

While the Williamses might have been a bit surprised that it was the cross that eventually won, Gradert wasn’t so surprised.

“A few days ago, I might have said that one (the Hamp),” he said. “But yesterday, I thought it was him (the cross).

“He looked the part. He just had the look and in the end it worked out.”

Williams, who has been showing since he was in the fifth grade, has had some success before.

His pigs have won multiple honors at various jackpot shows over the years.

His Berkshire last year was the breed champion at the county show and eventually was eighth overall at Oklahoma Youth Expo.

But grand champion at county is still a nice notch in the belt.

“And I thought it had slipped away,” Williams said.