Kiley Ramey: An Energetic Animal Lover

By Rebecca Maynard

Kiley Ramey has a love for animals — she has showed goats, lambs, pigs, and steers at the Clarke County Fair since she was in fifth grade.

“I have always been interested in doing something with animals ever since I was little,” said Ramey, who has considered the possibility of K9 dog handling training. “When I was younger I always wanted to be ‘the cop that had a dog all the time with him,’ but now that I am older and see what’s going on in the world right now, I thought maybe not so much,” she said.

“So I thought about training dogs for law enforcement officers and other things like training services dogs as well.” Online canine instructor programs and courses are available, but with graduation just days behind her, she plans to take the summer off to spend time with family and friends and go to the beach.

As vice president for the Clarke County High School FFA (Future Farmers of America), Ramey held meetings once a month after school to talk about upcoming things and make sure to get everyone’s new ideas for the chapter, such as different fundraisers. “To finish up the meetings, we would plan something fun, and every year we all looked forward to our cornhole tournament meeting, where we would finish the night and meeting with some cornhole as well as some snacks and drinks!” Kiley said. 

“I’ve competed in quite a few different events over the past four years at our state convention every year in June,” Ramey said. “I competed in plant science my freshman year along with horse judging, I continued horse judging my sophomore year, my junior year I competed in ag sales, and due to COVID-19 I won’t be able to compete this year, my senior year, at state convention.”

Ramey has an identical twin sister, Dana, and going through school and other activities together was a unique experience.

“Being a twin is actually very entertaining when we go out of town together or go anywhere together,” Ramey said. “We get very strange stares and we already knew why everyone stared at us or took a double take. We always thought that was pretty funny.

The most stressful thing is doing everything together, going through school together, and hanging with family and friends that don’t always get to see us — because they can’t always get our names right — but we have both learned just to answer to both after a while. Being out together, we have gotten used to the question ‘Are you all twins?’ at least once after walking into a store.” 

“My favorite memory out of all the years of showing would have to be showing a lamb for the first time and winning Reserve Grand Champion market lamb!” Ramey said. “My sister and I have always been the girls that showed goats and pigs, and two years ago we decided to show lambs, as well. With a lot of help from family friends and my parents, we were able to get two lambs, one for my sister and one for me. All I can say is my first year with a lamb was a lot of hard work and a lot of long walks up and down our back roads! But it all paid off in the end.”