I really like doing it because it’s teaching me life skills. I have been part of it my whole life. And when I enter the show ring, I like the mindset you go into. It’s like I’m going to win. PAISLEY OLSON 4-H participant
4-H’ers are glad that the fair is back It’s safe to say that the Douglas County Fair is one of the year’s social highlights for members of the area’s 4-H groups. This is a time when they get to see friends they might not have seen all year. They camp on the fairgrounds overnight with their families, enter photo, woodworking and other contests, tend to their livestock, and spend time with kids who share their hobbies. “After I’m done totally showing that’s when I get to go to all the rides,” said Paisley Olson, 10, a member of the Lucky Star Club and a fifth-grader at Woodland Elementary School in Alexandria. Paisley is among the many 4-H’ers happy that the Douglas County Fair is returning this year. When the pandemic forced the closing of the fair last year, the 4-H’ers lost their chance to show the public what they’d been working on for months. And they missed out on seeing their friends. Often, these friends attend other school districts, meaning that they might not see each other all year, and that come August, 20 Fair Essentials 2021 dcmnfair.com
two years will have passed between visits. For Paisley’s family, 4-H is a tradition that spans four generations. It began with her great-grandfather during the Depression years, continued with her grandfather and her mom, and now she and her sister take part. Paisley shows Simmental cattle (this year’s are named Jersey Girl, Jurisdiction and Harbor Bay), and pigs, and she also enters non-livestock categories like photography and crafts. “I really like doing it because it’s teaching me life skills,” she said. “I have been part of it my whole life. And when I enter the show ring, I like the mindset you go into. It’s like I’m going to win.” For Anakin Bosek, missing last year’s fair meant missing one of his last years to show animals and other projects. Recently graduated from high school, he has been in 4-H for 12 years, and the Douglas County Fair has been a big part of that. He has shown every animal species at the fair except llamas, including his Thoroughbred horse, Indy, and his Limousin cattle.
He’s also participated in the nonlivestock events at the fair, building Lego sculptures, trap shooting, and building Rube Goldberg contraptions, to name a few. Bosek has become one of 4-H’s youth leaders, and one of the things he missed most last year was community service projects and helping the youngest 4-H members learn the ropes. This year he is in charge of the annual auction, in which local residents and businesses bid on 4-H livestock ribbons in order to help kids pay for their 4-H projects. The 4-H youth get to keep the animals; missing out on last year’s auction meant they also missed that income. The youth are responsible for recruiting the businesses, and ribbons sell for anymore from $250 to $2,000. “To have those kids miss out on (the fair) was a real bummer,” said Paisley’s mom, Michaela Olson. “But we got through it and this year we’re looking forward to a really good year.”
