BEFORE COMING TO CAL FARLEY’S BOYS RANCH, SARAH ADMITS TO BEING a “very, very stubborn child. I refused to do anything my parents said. They tried everything and eventually got to the point where they didn’t know what to do.”
Her stepmother brought up Boys Ranch, but her father wanted to keep her home a little longer, hoping she’d turn around. Sarah didn’t. In fact, nothing improved until she finally came to Boys Ranch.
“Things changed a lot since I’ve been here,” Sarah confesses. “Me and my stepmom have gotten extremely close. Our relationship has gotten a whole lot better. So, it’s really nice.”
At 16, Sarah is a sophomore who loves her ag classes and even chemistry. “Science has never been my strong suit, but it pushes me to really think and to put more effort into what I’m doing,” she explains. “I’m taking all honors classes, I’m in rodeo, and I’m able to do a whole lot of extracurricular activities.”
Sarah’s agriculture classes give her a real sense of achievement. “We get to take care of the animals. Right now, we have a couple of pigs. So we go down there and brush the pigs and feed them and walk them and weigh them,” she says. “It’s a lot of hands-on experience. And for me, it’s easier to learn that way because I’m more of a hands-on person. So being able to do that stuff, I really enjoy being here.”
For as long as she can remember, Sarah has loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian. That was the only job she knew about that would allow her to work with God’s creatures. Since coming to Boys Ranch, she’s been exposed to many other career options that are a better fit for who she is and what she wants, and they also tie into her strengths. “I’m thinking about being a game warden,” she says. “It’s got a variety of things that you can do, and it’s not just specifically animals.”
Sarah says, “I want to say thank you to the people who support Boys Ranch. You’ve given me so many opportunities, and there are so many things out there that I can do that I wasn’t able to do when I was home. I also do work on the Ranch that’s preparing me for later on in life when I need a job. It kind of takes away the rude awakening of being 18 when you’re living on your own. I’m really, really grateful for that.”