Showing fair animals is a months-long process
Sarah Wellert, a sophomore at Orrville High and a member of the Bauman Guys and Gals 4-H Club, will show her dairy cows at the 174th edition of the Wayne County Fair.
Every year hundreds of area kids participate in the junior fair at the Wayne County Fair, but it isn’t just a matter of showing up to show their animals.
For Sarah Wellert, a sophomore at Orrville High and a member of the Bauman Guys and Gals 4-H Club who will show her dairy cows at the 174th edition of the fair, scheduled Sept. 9-14, the journey to the show ring began months ago.
Wellert lives on a diary farm and said she picks out her calf around March. In May she separates the chosen calf from the rest of the herd, and from that point on, she feeds and waters it twice a day and walks it several times a week.
12-year-old Laurie Bauman, a member of County Line Clovers 4-H Club and a seventh-grader at Northwestern Middle School, will be busy at this year’s fair — she shows market goats, market lambs and market swine.
She arrives at the fairgrounds bright and early each day to take care of all of her animals.
“I get to the fairgrounds around 8 a.m. every day,” she said. “I check to make sure the animals are fed and watered. Then I clean the pen and put down new shavings.”
Her brother, fourth-grader Anthony Barr, will make his animal showing debut at this year’s fair, showing the chickens he began caring for in mid-May. “I enjoy loving on them and walking them,” he said.
In addition to preparing their animals and then showing at the fair, every exhibitor also has to participate in a Skillathon and other training and events depending on what animals they are showing. These activities help prepare exhibitors to comply with the rules and regulations that keep both them and their animals safe and healthy during the fair.
A skillathon is a series of learning stations that test the members’ knowledge on their animal projects as well as interview skills. They can involve feed identification, medicine label identification, and animal parts identification, and this year in Wayne County, potential exhibitors identified parts of a thank you note to help them write thank you notes to buyers and award donors. An interview with a judge is also part of it, and kids can’t fail a skillathon, but they do get a score and it is required.
In preparation for showing their animals, the junior exhibitors have to wear special outfits, which vary depending on the animal they are showing. Exhibitors also have to wash and prepare each animal before they step into the show ring.
The hardest part for a lot of young exhibitors is saying goodbye to their animals at the end of the fair. It’s the reality for many junior fair exhibitors and is bittersweet, even if it is a good life lesson about raising animals.
If your child is interested in participating in next year’s fair, go to the website for the Ohio State Extension Wayne County at https://wayne.osu.edu/program-areas/4-h-youth-development. The website has a list of clubs children can join. Next year’s deadline to join 4-H is April 1.