Want to know who's really running the goat pavilion at the Sydney Royal Easter Show? Follow the trail back to a small high school on the NSW plains, and to one agricultural teacher who has been quietly shaping the industry since the 1970s.

West Wyalong High School, on Wiradjuri land, has produced an alumni network that now fills almost every key role in the show's goat section. The Chair of the Goat Committee, the Chief Steward, the Breed Captain, the Announcer: All former students of the same school and all shaped by the same teacher.

That teacher is Mandy Statham.

Now teaching occasionally as a casual but primarily retired, Mandy was very much present at the 2026 Show on the judging panel, assessing the very competition she spent decades building.

"Mandy was a pioneer of the school side of things for a long time," said Michael Mrowka, Chief Steward of the Angora goat section, who came through West Wyalong High School’s agricultural program himself.

"My brother Morgan, who's the Breed Captain and Announcer, came through the same school, same process. Sarah, who chairs the whole goat committee, same school, same pathway. It tells you everything.”

Sarah Hanlon is a practising veterinarian who now chairs the entire Goat Committee at the Royal Easter Show. She traces it all back to Year 7 at West Wyalong High School.

"Mandy put me forward to be a Steward, then a Camp Steward, and then I pretty much did every other role you could imagine in the shed," Ms Hanlon said. "Chief Steward, announcing, timekeeping, then I was fortunate enough to go onto Council, and now I'm Chair of the whole section."

The network Ms Hanlon describes has spread far and wide. Veterinarians, mechanics, electricians, agricultural teachers. But they all find their way back to the Sydney Royal Easter Show each year.

"We're spread out everywhere now, some are in Sydney, some in Queensland, but we all come back for the Show," she said. "That's our thing. That's our common thread."

It's a thread Mandy began weaving more than fifty years ago. Mandy introduced students to the show circuit and taught them the animal husbandry and ring craft that, her former students say, turned out to be useful for a lot more than showing goats.

"The public speaking side of it was huge," Ms Hanlon said. "We had the opportunity to be young judges, and I came to Sydney for the young judges' competition. Presenting your reasoning in front of a crowd when you're quite young is nerve-wracking. It still is sometimes. But it prepares you for so much."

According to Mandy, each student has their own unique interests and abilities that should be nurtured.

“Agriculture encompasses so many aspects of other subjects. It touches everything from science to maths, geography, economics, food and industrial technology, English and history to name a few,” says Mandy.

“Teachers should take each student’s strengths on board and tailor a set of strategies just for them. The students can then take ownership and go forward in leaps and bounds.”

The West Wyalong High School effect is not lost on the newer schools now finding their feet on the show circuit.

Louise Bianchi, Agricultural Teacher at Muirfield High School, brought a cohort of largely urban students to this year's show. Students previously nervous around animals are now confidently herding, handling and vaccinating the Muirfield Angora goats.

"Some of the students were quite scared of the animals when we first started," Ms Bianchi said.

"Now they'll go out there, round them up, catch them, give them vaccinations. To watch that confidence build, it's great for the students and great for the agricultural industry."

Muirfield High School student, Sebastian Roberts, had never worked with goats before joining the program and believes a lot is involved in exhibiting at the Show.

“It's not just about how to handle the animals; it's reading how they're behaving, how they're feeling, and learning how to use that awareness in other situations too,” Sebastian said.

"The drive to get to shows like this, yeah, I really love it. And when you do well in the show ring, it's a big confidence boost.”

That feeling, of young people stumbling into something they didn't know they needed, is exactly what Mandy spent her career creating. And the proof is all around the goat pavilion at this year's Show.

"There are several of us in the shed who've all gone on to completely different things in life, but we all come back to the Show,” Ms Hanlon said. “We all started in the same place."