Senior 4-H’ers brought their A-game to the final event of the Brown County Fair on Friday night: the master showmanship contest.
Every teen in the ring was a Grand Champion of their showmanship categories, but they have apply their skills to show all large or small animals at the fair — no matter how much or how little experience they have with that animal.
Three 4-H’ers competed in the small animal category, showing a cat, rabbit, dog and poultry. Jamie Bube was the winner of the showmanship award.
Bube normally shows dogs, but found favor with the judges with the other three animals.
Participants had a limited amount of time to learn about the new creatures. Some of them only learned they’d made it to the finals the day before. Bube said it was one of the more challenging parts of the competition.
“There’s only so much you can know and you don’t know what they’re going to ask you,” she said, “so you’re trying to narrow it down.”
Other participants in small animal showmanship were Franklin Lane and Mattie Satter. Lane normally shows chickens and swine. Satter shows rabbits, dogs and sheep.
Large showmanship 4-H’ers presented horses, dairy goats, boer goats, cattle and swine before the judges. The competitors were Ellie Bond, Reva Shugars, Caleb McGhehey, Darby Sisson, Mattie Satter and Savannah Poling.
Bond ended her final year of 4-H with a win in the large animal showmanship contest, her third year making it into the ring. She normally shows cattle and swine.
Bond said winning was “a great way to close out my last year.”
