Kindergarten students nurture sick goat

St. Joseph News-Press

EDGERTON, Mo. -- Ho hum. Here is another tale about a lactose-intolerant, kindergarten-graduating, CNN-watching pygmy goat. You've seen one, you've seen them all.

But wait. Debbie Pack sees something deeper, a more profound lesson, all the while admitting the circumstances ring of the ridiculous.

Call it the Gospel of Preston.

On its surface, this involves a teacher, Pack, who brought an undernourished and orphaned newborn goat to school and saw it embraced by her kindergartners. Beyond that, it shows how a creature can become an object lesson of compassion for youngsters.

"Parents were so good about it," she said of the studious ruminant. "They were so proud their children had a chance to take care of something God created."

Pack, mother of three, didn't seek out this mission. She found it flying past her.

On Feb. 16, Pack and her family went to a farm near Holt to look for a pygmy goat, a companion for one they got earlier that month. It would join a barnyard that includes four miniature horses and two Alpine goats.

As they walked among the animals, a silver-colored pygmy goat went airborne, launched by the horns of another. It landed near the feet of Pack. When she learned the goat's mother had died, it was heart-melt time.

The Packs drove home that day with two goats, a white one they would name Remington and the one that had gone flying. The runt was a throw-in by the farmer, who gave the goat a 50-50 chance of survival.

In those early weeks, the odds seemed much longer, though the family gave it a spirited effort. "We put a bib on him and treated him like a newborn," Pack said.

But every bottle feeding produced only more discharged fluids. The goat couldn't keep anything down. It looked grim for Preston, weighing two pounds.

A veterinarian's query to the University of Missouri at Columbia turned up a correctable malady: a milk allergy. With a lactose-free lifestyle, Preston began to progress.

But he needed feeding every couple of hours, a schedule not conducive to a working mother. With the blessing of Principal Margie McCartney of the Outreach Christian School in Avondale, Pack enrolled Preston in her kindergarten, a sort of class project.

The kids warmed to Preston, attending to the tiny creature, watching him grow and even insisting his name be placed in the class roll book. The goat participated in gym class and recess.

On those occasions when the class needed to do goatless things, they found a way to keep Preston occupied quietly in his carrier. They turned on the television, but he bleated with any program that wasn't the news, which he pondered at length.

"Thank goodness we had cable," the teacher said.

Preston participated in the school's Play Day, winning the class wheelbarrow race and 50-yard dash. His picture takes its place in the class yearbook, with the inscription beneath, "You have accomplished more than most goats could in a lifetime."

On May 19, the goat graduated with his kindergarten classmates, donning a small mortarboard and bow tie for the occasion. He held the diploma in his teeth.

"He got up there just like, 'I deserve this,"' Pack said.

With the summer vacation commenced, she wants Preston to learn more about outdoor goating. So far, he has resisted spending time with the family's fellow pygmies. "They just want to do goat things," Pack concedes.

At the suggestion of a student's parent, the teacher is considering writing a children's book about the goat that survived long odds and went to school. She also wants to take it to day-care centers and senior-citizen homes to tell the story.

"We'd explain that God has a plan for everyone," Pack said.