I'm writing in response to Troy Marshall's Sept. 7 article, "Follow-Up On The Colorado State Fair's Great Blunder." Marshall asserts that "The rules were legitimate, they were clearly understood, and they were intentionally broken, after which they simply were not enforced."

Did he actually read the Colorado State Fair (CSF) rule? Rule number 7 on page 4 of the Junior Livestock Rules states: "All 4-H and FFA project animals must have a premises ID number on the entry summary form."

• Nowhere in the rule document is it stated that the premises ID number has to be a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) number, or that the premises ID number is to be for the location where the animals are housed.
  
  
• Nowhere in the rule document is it stated where an individual should go to obtain a premises ID number.
  
  
• Nowhere in the rule document is a "valid premises ID number" ever defined.

Do you think waiting until the eve of the sale and then telling children they must either sign up their parents' property as a premises under NAIS or not sell their animal might be considered placing a child under duress? Perhaps the CSF could have clarified that a "valid" premises ID number actually meant an NAIS number, and that the number must be for the location where the animals in question were housed prior to telling children they had qualified for the livestock sale.

-- Leellen Koroulis
Steamboat Springs, CO.