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Wendy Valentine (Langlois) is a fourth-generation sheep shearer in Langlois, Oregon, who has been shearing sheep since 1981. Valentine learned to shear from her father and grandfather. As a child, she spent summers in barns helping her father shear. Valentine explained, "The first thing a little kid does is sweep up wool and throw wool in piles. And when I was young, the first thing you did as a capable child was tie wool." Valentine eventually graduated from those tasks; at 16, she was the only female to attend a week-long shearing school in Roseburg, Oregon. After shearing 13 sheep during her first day at the school, she recalls “wanting to die” from pain and stiffness.

Although she’d grown up on a sheep ranch, Valentine didn’t understand the full responsibility of being a rancher and shearer until she took over as owner of the Langlois ranch when she was 18. With 300 acres of land and 160 head of sheep to look out for, she recalls “a very interesting learning curve" that has shaped the remainder of her adult life and who she is today. As with many who are passionate about their work, Valentine does not shear for the income alone. “Shearing is meaningful because it is a service industry. I am helping the farmer. I am helping the sheep. I am helping me. I get to teach others about how to treat animals, time management, anything worth doing is HARD WORK and fulfilling.” She estimates that over the years, she has sheared over 100,000 head of sheep. As of 2021, her record is 208 sheep sheared in an eight-hour day.

At the heart of Valentine’s work is her passion for maintaining, as well as educating others about, animal physical and emotional well-being. She is no stranger to the complications associated with caring for livestock, which includes helping ewes to give birth, performing animal CPR or, as she did during her early ranching years, bottle feeding rejected lambs. Shearing is a critical part of animal husbandry; Valentine explains that unsheared lambs can overheat and not eat enough to thrive. Proper and timely shearing can even save the lives of sheep or lambs; for those animals infested with maggots, which will eat them alive within days, removing the infested wool is critical. The same goes for lambs or sheep attacked by predators; prompt shearing is critical so that the veterinarian can locate an abscess or bite and treat it successfully.

As part of a community-based career, shearing has also enabled Valentine to develop multi-generational relationships. Sheloves “people and visiting with them, seeing their families evolve and change. [She has] sheared for several generational families now and [watched] children pick up where older generations have left off in ranching and farming.” Valentine taught her own son to shear and hopes that her granddaughter will shear as well. She jokes that her family must “have lanolin (wool oil) in [their] blood now.”

Valentine’s work as a shearer also enables her to collect and process wool for her other passion. An avid knitter and crocheter, she enjoys getting to "'ooh' and 'ahh' over all the many different breeds, colors, fibers, and lengths.” It is “like an addiction."