Meaningful moment: Ringgold 4-H member’s livestock sale benefits friend battling cancer

Rosalie Cox, 13, donated $10,300 from her goat sale to 11-year-old Michael Toth, a fellow member of the Ginger Inn 4-H Club who was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year.

The numbers kept climbing.

Twenty dollars a pound became $30. Then $40.

Michael Toth, left, and Rosalie Cox pose with Rosalie’s market goat at the Washington County Agricultural Fair last month. Rosalie, 13, donated the $10,300 raised from the sale of her goat to help Michael and his family with expenses as he continues treatment for leukemia. Submitted

Before long, the bidding on Rosalie Cox’s market goat had pushed past $50, and those gathered around the auction ring at the Washington County Agricultural Fair began to realize something special was happening.

By the time the final bid landed at $100 per pound, there were tears in the crowd.

Some belonged to Rosalie and her family, others to members of her small 4-H club.

And plenty belonged to 11-year-old Michael Toth – and his family – who knew money raised from the sale would help him as he continues treatment for leukemia.

For Rosalie, 13, it started with a simple decision.

She and Michael are members of the Ginger Inn 4-H Club, a small group of about 10 members with roots that stretch back more than a generation.

When Rosalie, a Ringgold Middle School student, learned in June that Michael had been diagnosed with leukemia, the news hit close to home.

Courtney Cox said her daughter, who lives in Monongahela, is a natural animal lover who has been involved in 4-H for about five years. She raises pigs and goats and, this year, added rabbits.

Just a short time before his diagnosis, Rosalie and the other club members had been with Michael at a 4-H gathering.

“They were all outside running around and Michael was playing football and seemed, you know, totally OK,” Courtney said.

About a week later, they learned Michael had leukemia.

“It really upset her, the diagnosis, and she just was very concerned,” Courtney said.

Then one day, Rosalie told her parents what she wanted to do.

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna donate my goat money to him,” Courtney recalled her saying.

It was Rosalie’s idea, and her parents knew what giving up the proceeds meant to their daughter.

At 13, she had already spent years raising animals and saving the money she earned through 4-H.

“The amount of money she’s saved over the years is a ton to a 13-year-old,” Courtney said. “So she’s like, ‘I can use it to do something good.’”

A whirlwind summer

Michael has been around 4-H for much of his life, too.

His father, Mike Toth of Monongahela, grew up in the program with Rosalie’s father, Aaron Cox.

“The people in 4-H who show, it’s kind of a tightknit thing,” Mike said.

Michael joined when he was about 9 and raises sheep and goats.

Outside of 4-H, he is an active kid who plays baseball and football.

That made what happened in June all the more unexpected.

“He wasn’t sick,” Mike said.

There were only a few things the family noticed.

Michael had bruising on his legs and a number of small spots around his ankles. His mother, Casey Lawson, is a nurse, and what she saw raised a red flag.

“She told me, ‘I’m just gonna get his blood work done just to see,’” Mike recalled. “And, of course, we still weren’t thinking anything of this.”

Michael had blood work done June 12.

Later that afternoon, Lawson called Mike with news no parent expects to hear.

“The doctors told me we need to get Michael to Children’s now,” she told him.

Within about an hour, they were at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Doctors repeated Michael’s blood work and eventually came into the room to talk with the family.

That was when the family learned Michael had leukemia.

For the Toth family, it was one of the hardest days of their lives.

Michael was scared, and his parents were, too.

Three days later, on June 15, he underwent a lumbar puncture and received his first dose of chemotherapy.

The weeks that followed brought good days and bad days for Michael and his family.

“We’re doing much better than what we were before,” Mike said. “We have some frustrating parts and, you know, some hard parts. Michael has good days and he’ll have some bad days, but for the most part, he is doing OK.”

About a month after his diagnosis, the family received the news they had been hoping for.

After more testing in July, they learned Michael was cancer-free.

“We definitely were happy, it was the kind of thing we were hoping for but did not want to get too far ahead of ourselves,” Mike said.

Michael was happy, too. It was welcome news after a whirlwind month, but his treatment is not over.

Michael is expected to continue chemotherapy for about two years. How often he receives it will depend on how his body responds, and treatment has already had to be paused at times because chemotherapy affected his blood counts.

He will resume chemotherapy today.

While his doctors have cleared him to return to school, for now, his family has chosen to home school him to reduce his exposure to illness.

Sports have also been put on hold, but that doesn’t mean Michael has stopped being part of his teams.

He can still go to games and stand alongside his teammates, even if he can’t yet play.

“He still gets to go and be with his team,” Mike said. “He can be on the field and everything. He just can’t play.”

And there was one thing Michael was determined not to miss.

The fair. Raising an animal for the fair takes months of work. Mike said the animals generally come home around March, meaning 4-H members spend four or more months feeding, watering, walking and caring for them.

“It is hard work,” he said. “It takes a lot of time.”

After Michael was diagnosed, his family initially wondered whether he would be able to finish what he started.

“We thought, nope, that’s it. He couldn’t show,” Mike said.

Family members and others in 4-H stepped in to care for his projects during treatment. But when doctors cleared Michael for the fair, he was determined to show his own animal.

“He wanted to show,” Mike said. “He was determined to want to do it.”

When fair week arrived, Michael was there in the show ring.

‘What can we do?’

That willingness to help began almost immediately after Michael was diagnosed.

Dennis Dunmire, leader of the Ginger Inn 4-H Club and Michael’s cousin, said the group was restarted only a few years ago.

Dunmire, Mike Toth and Aaron Cox all grew up in 4-H together.

When Dunmire’s children joined, he and Aaron decided to resurrect their old club. Today, it has about 10 members.

The connections go beyond the kids.

“When you step back, the majority of the parents all grew up in 4-H together,” Dunmire said.

That history became especially important after Michael’s diagnosis.

“I didn’t have to prompt the club for anything, and everybody was wanting to help support Michael to give him the ability to maintain his fair projects,” Dunmire said.

The other kids immediately wanted to know how they could help. It started with making sure Michael’s projects could still get to the fair.

Courtney said the children were prepared to show and sell his animals themselves if Michael wasn’t well enough to do it.

“All the kids in our 4-H group were willing to show and sell it if he wasn’t able to,” she said. “The kids were really trying to step up and be there for him.”

Luckily, Michael was able to be there himself.

But Rosalie had already decided she wanted to do more.

“It was really all Rosie that came up with the idea to donate the money,” Dunmire said. From there, her family began getting the word out.

Typically, 4-H members send buyer letters to businesses and other potential supporters ahead of the livestock auction. The Cox family usually doesn’t send many, but this year Rosalie wanted people to know what she was doing.

She wrote a letter explaining that the proceeds from her goat would go to Michael.

She and her father printed roughly 10 to 20 copies and delivered them to businesses around the area.

Dunmire received one, too, and shared it on Facebook through his family farm, Tower Lane Farm.

“I think just between Facebook and word of mouth, folks that I grew up in 4-H with saw it and helped get the (potential) buyers together,” he said.

Still, the Cox family had no idea what to expect when auction night arrived Aug. 21.

$100 a pound

There was no announcement from the auction block explaining that the proceeds from Rosalie’s goat would go to Michael.

Some people knew. Others didn’t. The fair’s livestock auction is part of the larger lesson 4-H members learn through raising market animals. Members account for costs including feed, veterinary bills and other expenses before marketing their projects to potential buyers.

Goat prices vary, but $5 to $10 per pound would not be unusual.

Rosalie’s goat was not a champion, and it did not need to be.

The bidding began around $10 per pound.

Then it started moving. “It was like, you know, $10, $11, $12. Then it was like $13, $14, $15,” Dunmire recalled. “Then they started jumping into $5 increments. Then it’s like, wait, we’re pushing $50 a pound here,” he said. “Then it was like, oh wait, we’re beyond $50 a pound. We’re now $60, now $70, now $80, now $90.”

It happened in only a few minutes.

Even now, thinking about it brings the emotion back.

“It still gives me goosebumps now, rethinking it and talking through that,” he said.

Courtney was watching it unfold from the crowd.

She had stayed with Rosalie until it was time for her to enter the ring, then took a seat near Michael’s family.

Then the bidding took off. “It was such a blur, and it really blew me out of the water,” Courtney said.

Around her, people who knew Rosalie’s plan began to realize what was happening.

“I think everybody in Michael’s family was just sobbing,” Courtney said. “I look over, my daughter’s best friend is sobbing. I look over, Dennis’ dad is sobbing. Everybody that knew what was going on was extremely emotional.”

Those who didn’t know were understandably confused.

The final bid came from Travis Richmond of Ten Mile Paving at $100 per pound.

Courtney said the family didn’t know Richmond and hadn’t even delivered one of Rosalie’s letters to Ten Mile Paving.

Instead, they had taken a letter to Chaz Augenstein, owner of C.R. Augenstein, who had previously worked with the paving company and helped spread the word about Rosalie’s plan.

Rosalie’s goat weighed 103 pounds, bringing the total to $10,300.

“How much she was able to raise for him, it was completely unbelievable,” Mike said.

As the numbers climbed, Michael was smiling as his family cried happy tears.

One good thing

The money will go into an account established in Michael’s name to help his family with medical bills and other expenses as his treatment continues.

But the gesture meant more to the family than the money alone.

Mike has known Rosalie’s family since he was a child.

“They’re very kind people,” Mike said. “They’ll do anything for you.”

For him, Rosalie’s decision said plenty about the 13-yearold and the people raising her.

“When she did that, you could tell how kids are raised and how they’re brought up,” Mike said. “Her wanting to do that just showed me that her parents raised her the right way.”

For Courtney, seeing her daughter put that compassion into action was something else entirely.

“We know she is a wonderful daughter, wonderful big sister, wonderful friend,” Courtney said. “But seeing her put all that actually into action, we’re very proud.”

Courtney believes 4-H has helped reinforce those qualities.

Rosalie grew up on a farm and loves animals, but raising them has also taught her how much care goes into something that depends on her.

“She sees how much you have to care for them and how well they do if you do care for them, not just go in and feed them and move about your life,” Courtney said. “I think it’s just made her very compassionate.”

That is part of what 4-H is meant to do, she said, teaching children to use their heads, hearts and hands while encouraging them to make their communities better.

“They do a really good job of trying to get the kids involved and, you know, making the world a little bit better of a place,” Courtney said.

Dunmire saw that lesson play out around the auction ring.

“There’s the competition side of it, but at the end of the day, there’s a lot of folks that just straight up care for other people,” he said.

After the auction ended, members of Michael’s extended family came over to hug her and thank her.

Courtney could see tears in her daughter’s eyes.

Rosalie, who her mother describes as quiet and shy, was in shock.

Later, after things settled down, she tried to make sense of how something she had planned so simply had grown so large.

Her mother reminded her what one person’s decision can do.

“I said to her, ‘See one good thing that one person can do, it just spirals,’” Courtney said.

Shown, from left, are Michael Toth, 11; Rosalie Cox, 13; Chaz Augenstein, owner of C.R. Augenstein, an Eighty Four-based fuel delivery company; Leann Bauer; and Travis Richmond, founder and president of Ten Mile Paving, after the Washington County Fair livestock auction Aug. 21. Richmond placed the winning bid of $100 per pound on Rosalie’s market goat, raising $10,300 to help Michael and his family as he continues treatment for leukemia.