Island County Fair: Don’t look now, but kids of all ages are thrilled
By BRIAN KELLY
South Whidbey Record Editor
August 24, 2010 · Updated 3:39 PM
It was a really, really big show.
The final numbers aren’t in yet, but organizers of this year’s Island County Fair say the big event surpassed last year’s fair from the midway and beyond.
“Our food concessions were up. And our pre-sale for the carnival was sold out long before the fair came,” said fair manager Sandey Brandon.
“Everything went very smoothly. This was the best year we’ve had probably in the last six or eight years,” she said.
And the only bad weather — a little rain on Sunday morning — quickly passed.
“People came out, people stayed and people ate,” Brandon added.
Dozens of 4-H members packed the fairgrounds with exhibits and animals, and many took home ribbons and trophies.
“It’s been good. I’ve had good luck with my projects,” said Lance Kidder, a 17-year-old from Coupeville who is in the Rock ’n’ Doodle poultry and the Central Whidbey Cattlemen clubs. “And I’ve had my call ducks do well,” he added.
His projects for this year’s fair included a sofa table made of maple. He won senior Grand Champion and best of show in the mechanical science category, and was named champion for seniors in the beef division.
His heifer, Sweet Pea, was named best overall in its class.
Kidder brought about 16 or so birds to the fair. He also earned champion honors in three poultry categories, and four Reserve Champion awards in poultry.
His call ducks — miniature waterfowl — won best of show.
Monique Stolmeier of the Whidbey Shepherds had the Grand Champion market lamb for 2010.
“It was her first year in 4-H, and she has done incredible,” said her father, Lucus Noerenberg.
He said her Suffolk lamb named Fred sold for $5.50 a pound at the 4-H auction. Monique, 9, plans to use the money raised for next year’s 4-H project, which will probably be a pig or a sheep, her father said.
Monique, who tips the scales at 50 pounds, is a fourth-grader at Oak Harbor’s Crescent Harbor Elementary who happened to be the smallest member of the 4-H sheep barn competitors. She wasn’t intimidated by Fred’s bulk — all 143 pounds of it — and knew just what was needed to win the top prize.
“I couldn’t reach his back legs to get him to sit up, so I put my knee in front of him and pushed,” Monique said.
Fred was a squeaky clean champion. Monique washed him three times in a row before the competition.
Monique’s family has a knack for raising Suffolk lambs, which are prized for their tender meat. Her older brother, Jacob, won the Reserve Lamb Champion prize.
“He’s really frustrated because she keeps beating him,” said Elizabeth Leese, a local sheep farm mom.
“But even though Monique’s and Jacob’s sheep are big, they are very well-tamed,” Leese added.
Historic moment in the barn
In the sheep barn at the fair on Sunday, Constance Wiseman demonstrated her shearing skills on Copernicus, a Gotland Blueface Lustre sheep from Windy Hill Farm in Coupeville.
The process looked challenging, but Weisman was good at keeping the sheep contained, while she gently but quickly clipped off its pelt with an electric tool. Wiseman is a professional shearer from Greenbank who also shears alpacas, llamas and goats.
Copernicus, and his Gotland cousins, represent a historic moment in the sheep world. They are the first registered Gotland ewes raised in the United States, said Windy Hill Farm owner Joanne Martinis.
Martinis seems to take the historic significance of registering some of the first Gotlands in the United States in stride. She began breeding Gotlands to keep life interesting on the farm.
“My kids are in 4-H, and I wanted to try something different this year,” she said. “I decided to get into something new.”
Gotland sheep were developed on the Swedish island of Gotland and were used on Viking voyages for food and clothing. In 2003, they were introduced into the U.S. sheep population through artificial insemination, but are still rare here.
Gotlands are prized for their luxurious pelts, which produce soft, smooth, silky wool.
“The fleece judges loved their fleece because it’s so soft,” said Elizabeth Leese, mother to several sheep raisers.
“They also produce tender, flavorful meat in a smaller-sized lamb,” she said.
Naming sheep is an exercise in wit
4-H sheep mom Elizabeth Leese said her daughters often use names from literature, the opera, food or flowers to name their sheep.
The opera star rolling around in the hay was Brunhilde, and familiar flower names, such as Buttercup and Daisy, suited certain sheep just fine.
“We had sheep with the names Soup du Jour, Bon Appetit, and even Christmas Legs, as a sort of play on the whole Christmas lamb meal,” Leese said.
“We also named one of our sheep Mutton, with plans to eat him, but we never did.”
Fiber artist and sheep farmer Wendy Sundquist said that besides cartoon character names such as various Powder Puff Girls (one was Mojo Jo Jo,) her sheep have been named after cranky old relatives: Einer, Gunner and Uncle Buddy.
Joanne Martinis of Windy Hill Farm in Coupeville said having a theme helps her with names, because there are a lot of sheep to name at her sheep-breeding farm in Coupeville.
Martinis said themes have ranged from the names of wines — Chardonnay, and Pinot Grigio — to Japanese anime characters such as Avatar, and Looney Tunes’ Wiley Coyote and Road Runner. Her love of science inspired her to name Galileo and Copernicus, two sheep that are some of the first registered Gotland sheep in the United States.
One rainbow-colored sheep was the spectacle of the sheep barn. Skittles was dyed by her owner, Hayley Lundstrum with vinegar and Kool Aid in honor of her name.
Chickens are everywhere
Nearby in the poultry barn, crowds gathered repeatedly throughout the four-day fair for a chance to see the Chicken Olympics.
“This year we’ve put on nine shows. We’ve averaged about 70 people, and almost
90 percent have not seen it before,” said Matt Hoar, the emcee and lead ringmaster of the Chicken Olympics.
A big hit of the act was Hoar’s attempts — largely successful — at juggling a trio of rubber chickens.
Hoar said later his skills at keeping the phony fowl aloft came after much practice.
“I just woke up one morning and could do it,” he joked.
Seriously, though, the chicken didn’t come first. Hoar learned to juggle by using eggs.
“I started studying the circus arts about eight years ago, and it’s been a passion ever since,” he said. “It’s hard. It takes a lot of long hours of practice and no social life.”
Hoar was assisted at this year’s Olympics by Professor Poultry, aka Stinger Anderson, the superintendent of the poultry barn, and Marci Ameluxen, his 4-H co-leader.
Ameluxen said this year’s poultry barn had a huge collection of cluckers: 16 chickens in all, a big increase from 2009.
“It was like six last year,” she said. “Chickens are hot.”
Many of the birds were brought in by younger 4-H members, in the primary and junior classes.
“The future looks good,” Ameluxen said.
Overall, there were 133 birds this year in 4-H and open classes, up from the 110 seen at last year’s fair. Ameluxen said more and more 4-H members are raising poultry.
“Five years ago, there were three 4-H birds in the whole barn,” she said, adding that between 80 to 90 birds were exhibited at this year’s fair.
Nothing like a little pie
Not all 4-H members won a prize for their efforts, and some activities were just for fun.
Renae Ross and Karli Hall made a blackberry pie for the 4-H best pie contest in the kitchen at the 4-H building.
“We picked blackberries up there by the campsite,” Renae explained.
Pie making was a giggly affair for the pair, especially after the top crust broke apart and the girls tried to patch it back together on top of the pie.
Renae said the special technique was called “globbing.”
She said that apple pie was her favorite, and she wasn’t bothered that she wouldn’t get a chance to taste the pie when it was finished.
“I don’t really care. I don’t like blackberry pie,” she laughed. “It’s all poison.”
Entertainers are a big hit
Entertainment at this year’s big show ran the gamut from perennial fair favorites, the Timebenders, to country music bands and local acts such as Janie & Joe.
Kendra McDonald and Lindsey Johnson were two of the brave souls to venture onstage for hypnotist Kevin Wolfe’s show on Saturday.
Wolfe convinced the pair, and more than a half dozen others, that they had lost their belly buttons during the show. The girls frantically looked for their missing navels, to the delight of the crowd.
“I was prepared to be embarrassed,” Johnson said.
McDonald said she felt sort of strange while hypnotized.
“It was weird. My eyes kept twitching,” she said.
Gavin Baker, 4, got a chance to show his cowboy skills during the Greatest Kids Show on Dirt.
The Clinton boy held tight and wasn’t tossed from “Thunder,” a miniature mechanical bull, despite the bull’s many spins and bounces.
“It can go pretty much like the big ones,” explained John Macbeth, the announcer for the show.
The show, run by Got Bull out of the Tri-Cities, returned to the fair last week after a one-year hiatus. About 30 kids lined up to ride Thunder at each show, but Macbeth admitted he didn’t turn many kids away who showed up to ride. As many as 60 children got a chance to saddle up during one show.
“If they’re here and they are lined up, I’m a softie and can’t say no,” he said.
Grange produces a winner
The county fair has its roots in agriculture. One of the most impressive exhibits this year was the produce display created by the Deer Lagoon Grange.
The grange display was awarded the “Waterman Award,” the top prize given by the Island County Fair, plus best of show, an honorable merit and a blue ribbon, said Chuck Prochaska of the Deer Lagoon Grange.
“We started working on it ... about a month ago and spent three Friday work parties building the shelves and the benches and the display area there,” he said.
He praised the work of Tarey Kay in designing the elaborate presentation, which included three 50-pound sacks of onions, three boxes of tomatoes and crates of cauliflower and broccoli.
Prochaska said the grange has put together some great displays in the past, and recalled photos he has seen from the 1920s, ’40s and ’50s. But this year’s was something special.
“I don’t know that the Deer Lagoon Grange has ever put anything together as extensive and with the degree of product involved in the past,” he said.
Fair victors march to glory
This year’s 4-H winners were honored during the Parade of Champions on Sunday at the fair.
Meaghan De Wolf, 13, got a workout holding Skyler, a Pekin duck. Skyler helped Meaghan win Grand Champion honors in the heavyweight duck division.
Skyler, obviously no spring chicken, was a big bird to hold during the lengthy parade.
“She’s really heavy,” Meaghan said. “My arm is still kind of sore.”
Many of the winners were kids in their first year of 4-H, such as Wyatt Pauley of Oak Harbor.
Wyatt had his hands full keeping Tootsie, his dachshund, in line during the obedience competition. Wyatt, 11, is a member of the K-9 Korps 4-H Club.
“This is her first year — mine, too,” Wyatt said.
The constant barking in the dog barn, and the hundreds of visitors shuffling past, weren’t too much of a problem for the diminutive doggy.
“She’s been really good. It’s just some people she’s not good with,” he said. Tootsie is a rescue dog, and shy around tall people, Wyatt explained.
“She’s shy, but when she is around people she knows, she’s a very friendly and happy dog.”
The pair won two white ribbons and two blue ribbons, plus Reserve Champion and a Grand Champion honors. Tootsie was also named most beautiful animal, Wyatt said.
Medical calls down this year
Few problems were reported during this year’s fair.
Emergency medical calls were about half what they were last year, Island County Fire District 3 officials said.
There were 59 medical incidents that sent seven people to Whidbey General Hospital, but the injuries were not described as serious, said Jerry Beck, district fire prevention officer and fair commander.
He said injuries included a fall from a horse, and several bee stings.
Beck said there were more than 100 incidents at the fair in 2009, and attributed this year’s decline to cooler weather and hazard reductions by fair staff.
Beck said District 3 had 15 to 20 volunteers, a fire truck, five emergency medical vehicles and a complete command staff on the fairgrounds each day.
Fairgoers stock food bank
Fairgoers this year gave Good Cheer Food Bank a big boost.
They overwhelmingly responded to a four-hour promotion during which anyone attending the fair on Thursday morning got in for half price with a food donation for the Bayview nonprofit.
The result was 1,318 pounds of food collected for the food bank, nearly 500 pounds more than were donated in 2009, said Damien Cortez, food bank manager. People continued to bring food after the promotion ended, he said. And only a few items were out of date.
“I thought last year was big, but this was an amazing food drive,” Cortez said. “I was blown away.”
Cortez said he also was impressed with the quality and variety of the donations. Some people even told him they shopped especially for Good Cheer. The result was a nice variety of soups, condiments, salad dressings, sauces, canned goods and healthy snacks, he said.
“People didn’t just clean out their cupboards,” Cortez said. “Considering that things are especially tight out in the community, it was really, really cool.”
Record writers Roy Jacobson, Patricia Duff, Ben Watanabe and Samantha O’Brochta contributed to this report.
Contact South Whidbey Record Editor Brian Kelly at editor@southwhidbeyrecord.com.Comment on this story.
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