
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 5, 1994                   TAG: 9404050076
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

EXPERT HELPS SHEEP SHEARERS SHARPEN THEIR SPEEDY SKILLS

Armed with buzzing clippers and guidance from one of New Zealand's champions in the trade, sheep shearers from four states practiced their skills on 500 ewes.

Colin Gibson, 48, made a stop at Springfield Farm in Pulaski County as part of a 4 1/2-month tour to share his shearing techniques at sheep farms across the United States.

"On the whole, our shearers are much, much better now that we've started these schools," said Steve Umberger, sheep specialist for the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service.

Eight shearers gathered for the three-day session, which yielded about 3,500 pounds of wool. The clinic should make shearers faster and more productive, Umberger said.

Speed is especially important in Virginia, where about 30 shearers are responsible for shaving wool from the state's 70,000 mature sheep, he said.

"They have to be very good to get around to over 2,000 farms and get these sheep sheared" during the two-month spring shearing season, Umberger said.

The shearers, dressed in jeans and plaid shirts with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, gathered in a hilltop barn to watch Gibson wrestle one of the sheep into position and attack its woolly coat.

Gibson, who has 3,000 sheep of his own in New Zealand, spent most of his time in Pulaski wandering among the men and animals, stopping occasionally to give a few pointers.

The shearers came to the school with varying levels of experience, and some of the veterans competed with each other to see who could work the fastest, Umberger said.

Gibson arrived in the United States a little more than a month ago as a representative from the New Zealand Wool Board, which has been sending specialists to the United States for several years.

In Gibson's native country of 3 million people, there are about 50 million sheep. The United States has about 9 million sheep, Gibson said.

The Virginia Sheep Federation paid $1,000 for Gibson's visit, Umberger said. Each shearer paid a $20 registration fee for the school.

The shearers who attended Gibson's clinic came from Wythe, Grayson and Carroll counties and North Carolina, Tennessee and Maryland.

Before returning home, Gibson will have visited New York, Texas, Oklahoma and several Western states.

by CNB