Another one for the History Book

[/media-credit] Poul­try Pride and Live­stock, 11 year mem­ber, Rachel Fritz, and fel­low 4-H’er Brooks Hen­ning poses for a pic­ture dur­ing the 2012 Pre­ble County Junior Fair Rab­bit Show.

Sat­ur­day, Aug. 4 brought the clos­ing of the 162nd Pre­ble County Fair, with many mem­o­ries for 4-H’ers across the county — new records, and bit­ter­sweet end­ings for some.
This year the 4-H pro­gram had 721 mem­bers, aged 8–18, in 69 dif­fer­ent clubs. Some 156 adult vol­un­teers took the time to teach and pre­pare youth across the county for judg­ing.
The fair kicked off offi­cially on July 28, but for some, the fair sea­son started back at the end of June. The Pre­ble County Junior Fair Board, its adult vol­un­teers, the Senior Fair Board, fair­ground work­ers, and OSU Exten­sion staff, put in many hours prior to the fair, cre­at­ing live­stock shows, writ­ing stall cards, set­ting up barns, and get­ting their ducks in a row to make the fair as flaw­less as pos­si­ble.
The fair started off just like past fairs, with the moving-in of projects youth from all over the county had worked hard on for the past year.
This was fol­lowed by a day of weighing-in mar­ket live­stock, and the annual parade through the streets of Eaton.
This year the fair saw a large num­ber of ani­mal projects brought by 4-H’ers: beef, 49; goats, 83; dairy, 11; horses, 118; poul­try, 669; rab­bits, 538; sheep, 53; and swine, 131.
4-H’ers were able to wit­ness his­tory being made this year. A Mar­ket Turkey show made its first appear­ance in the poul­try depart­ment. Ten exhibitors and 18 turkeys made it in the his­tory books, with weights rang­ing from 9 to 41 pounds.
Bre­anna (Bre) Via, 10 years old, a mem­ber of the Poul­try Pride and Live­stock 4-H club, put another item on her 4-H resume, after being hav­ing the first-ever Grand Cham­pion Mar­ket Turkey at the Pre­ble County Fair.
“I won a ban­ner!” was the first thing Via said, with a huge smile on her face, after being named cham­pion.
Not only did Bre make his­tory, her sis­ter Adri­anna (Ady), 14, also put her name down in the books after win­ning Reserve Cham­pion Mar­ket Turkey.
The mar­ket turkey class had been many years in the mak­ing. A few years back the Poul­try Com­mit­tee tried to get such a class in place and was unsuc­cess­ful. Despite that, this year luck came their way and they were able to push the class though.
“It was a great learn­ing expe­ri­ence for every­body involved,” said Amanda Heitz­man, Junior Fair Board Poul­try Com­mit­tee adult advi­sor.
“I wanted to see the mar­ket turkey class added, because it was more of a ‘why not ?’ sit­u­a­tion. I have a spe­cial fond­ness for the turkeys and thought it would be another out­let for the kids in the mar­ket class,” said Bev Nise­won­der, who was a major push behind get­ting a mar­ket turkey class put in place. Nise­won­der could not have been any hap­pier when she was told this was going to hap­pen.
“I learned that other coun­ties had them in their mar­ket class, and that it was a huge thing at the state fair. And when I say huge, I mean huge. We were told by more than one entrant that if it wasn’t a 50-pounder to stay at home. I was close with a reg­u­lar entry last year and wanted to go after it again.
“So that is where it started. The kids all did good this year at the sale, for a first-year show­ing. Plus, if you were around when all the kids had to take them down the mid­way for weigh-ins, it was a hilar­i­ous show. Every­body stopped and watched. We all learned quickly that it is really dif­fi­cult to lead a turkey any­where, not to men­tion the bathing end of that.
“All in all, I’m glad that the Jr. and Sr. Fair Board agreed to the sug­ges­tion. Need­less to say, I have been dubbed the ‘Turkey Lady’ and I like it,” Nise­won­der said.
The most antic­i­pated con­test of the fair every year is the Show­man of Show­man con­test. This con­test fea­tures the best of the best from eight dif­fer­ent species on the fair­grounds, rab­bits, horses, chick­ens, sheep, goats, dairy cat­tle, beef cat­tle, and swine.
The con­test also had first ever – a show­man with a vision impair­ment.
The Show­man of Show­man Com­mit­tee, along with Christy Mill­house, OSU Exten­sion Edu­ca­tor, had the chal­lenge of cre­at­ing a safe envi­ron­ment, and a way for all par­tic­i­pants to par­tic­i­pate in the con­test with­out amend­ing any rules.
The con­test this year showed Pre­ble County’s true col­ors of hos­pi­tal­ity and out­stand­ing sup­port for the 4-H pro­gram. Pre­ble Coun­tians all over the fair­grounds pro­vided the com­mit­tee with resources and ani­mals to help “make the show go on.”
Cody Shafer was the win­ner of both Beef and Swine, and elected to rep­re­sent the Beef depart­ment.
“Being rec­og­nized as the show­man of show­men in one species is an honor, but when an exhibitor excels in two species, it is cer­tainly reflec­tive of the skills that indi­vid­ual has devel­oped. Cody can be very proud of this accom­plish­ment and how it reflects on his hard work and ded­i­ca­tion.” said Mill­house.
Also, Matthew Duffy was named the show­man of Dairy and he chose to pass his spot in the con­test onto the reserve show­man, Mor­gan McCol­lum.
“We know that through 4-H our mem­bers are not just learn­ing skills in a par­tic­u­lar project area, but they are also learn­ing life skills. When Matt stepped aside to allow Mor­gan to par­tic­i­pate in the Grand Show­man of Show­men, he reflected one of the traits we hope our 4-H’ers learn. He showed the abil­ity to put some­one else before him­self and exhib­ited the kind of sports­man­ship he and the adults who sup­port him can be proud of,” Mill­house com­mented.
The def­i­n­i­tion of a show­man is a per­son skilled at pre­sent­ing any­thing in an effec­tive man­ner, which is exactly what can be said about the win­ner of this con­test, sheep show­man Kyle Bur­ton.
Bur­ton, who is an 11-year mem­ber of the All-Star Live­stock 4-H club, ended his 4-H club time with the high­est honor in the Pre­ble County 4-H pro­gram. Through­out Burton’s career he has shown chick­ens, hogs, sheep, and goats, which helped him suc­ceed in the con­test.
The goal for all the par­tic­i­pants is to have the low­est score pos­si­ble, which deter­mines the win­ner. Bur­ton won the com­pe­ti­tion with a score of 11, one of the low­est scores to win the con­test in quite some time. The scores this year ranged from Burton’s 11, to 36.
Also par­tic­i­pat­ing in the con­test was Beef Show­man Cody Shafer, Swine Show­man Aubrey Steven­son, Goat Show­man Stephen Gar­rett, Rab­bit Show­man Aleeha Dud­ley, Chicken Show­man Ady Via, Horse Show­man Tris­ten With­row, and Dairy Show­man Mor­gan McCol­l­lum.
Pre­ble County had to say good bye to 28 4-H mem­bers who had reached their final year show­ing at in the Junior Fair. Among, those 28 is 11-member Rachel Fritz, who was a mem­ber of the Poul­try Pride and Live­stock 4-H Club.
Fritz over the years added many notches on her 4-H resume. She was a Junior Fair Board mem­ber for four years, a camp coun­selor for five years, a two-time win­ner of the Rab­bit Pre­mier Exhibitor Award, three– time win­ner of the rab­bit skil­lathon in the Senior Divi­sion, and a vol­un­teer at the 4-H com­mit­tee Ice Cream stand at the Pork Fes­ti­val for sev­eral years.
“I joined 4-H because all of my other sib­lings were in 4-H,” said Fritz.
Fritz’s two sis­ters were both 11-year mem­bers, and her brother was a 10-year mem­ber, who was not able to com­plete his last year due to join­ing the Air Force.
“When I was old enough to be a Junior Fair Board mem­ber, I went for it. My old­est sis­ter Ash­ley and my brother Aaron were also both four year mem­bers of the JFB and I wanted to do the same.
“I also really wanted to be involved. The younger mem­bers in the county really look up to us older mem­bers, and espe­cially the ones on JFB. I wanted to be one of those peo­ple and make an impact on another 4-H’er who was younger than me.”
Dur­ing Fritz’s 4-H career, she showed rab­bits and chick­ens for 11 years.
“All of my sib­lings showed rab­bits. Aaron was the first to start show­ing chick­ens – and taught us a dif­fer­ent kind of respon­si­bil­ity verses the rab­bits. Aaron and I were able to teach each other things about chick­ens that helped us grow into bet­ter show­men.”
4-H in the Fritz fam­ily is not about the win­ning.
“Win­ning is a perk but it is not what 4-H is about. Sure it is great to win, but 4-H has taught the fam­ily about lead­er­ship, work­ing with oth­ers who come from dif­fer­ent back­grounds, and being bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tors,” said Fritz
4-H camp is the sum­mer high­light most Pre­ble County 4-H’ers look for­ward to in June, and with Fritz and her fam­ily, it was no dif­fer­ent.
“Aaron started the fam­ily going to 4-H camp and after he came back from his first year, he kept talk­ing about how much fun it was. The next year Ash­ley became a coun­selor and did so for the next three years. I was the only one of us kids who went to 4-H camp every year dur­ing my 11 years.
“Being a camp coun­selor is going to be the hard­est thing not to be able to do any­more. Camp taught me patience in han­dling younger kids and how to take a lead­er­ship role.”
Not only was Fritz highly involved in 4-H dur­ing high school, she was also an avid soc­cer player. She was a four– year starter on Tri-County North var­sity girls’ team – and was involved in select soc­cer, play­ing for an inde­pen­dent team out of Mil­ton Union, known as the Lady Bull­dogs.
With this much involve­ment between 4-H and soc­cer, Fritz learned how to time man­age time.
“Time man­age­ment is one of the biggest things I have been able to take with me to col­lege. It did get pretty hard play­ing soc­cer year round and keep­ing up with all of my 4-H respon­si­bil­i­ties, but I would not go back and change any­thing at all. It was one the best things ever to pre­pare me for my future.”
Fritz is a sopho­more at Wright State Uni­ver­sity, where she is major­ing in Ath­letic Train­ing. Her future goals are not 100 per­cent set in stone, but she would love to work with a high school team some­where the county. She is cur­rently plan­ning on attend­ing grad­u­ate school after Wright State. Fritz also plans to con­tinue as an adult vol­un­teer with the 4-H program.

Posted by Ashley Fritz on Sep 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.