by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
One of the highlights of summer is going to the fair. It doesn’t matter what type – county fair, regional fair, state fair. Any fair is a grand celebration of what’s best about society, including agriculture, home arts, food and community.
Always an early-bird, I arrived at the state fair ahead of the crowd. There wasn’t much activity along the entrance aisle except a few food vendors opening their wagons for the day’s business and numerous heifers being led by individual handlers along a crossing street headed for the coliseum.
I stepped back onto the curb to watch these magnificent creatures go by. Each heifer had a simple rope tied around the neck and head in a harness design and was led by a young person, perhaps aged 14 to 18. Some heifers were dark brown, others were black and some were blonde. The tight procession moved at a good pace with seemingly cooperative heifers willing to be led.
As a city gal, I had no idea you could lead a cow like that. As I was soon to discover, not only can cows be led individually but also they can be managed and shown. Intrigued by the procession passing by, I walked around to the “people entrance” of the coliseum and found a seat on the second floor, giving me a perfect vantage point over the entire facility. This huge auditorium, having 40,000 seats or so, contained a dirt floor with white chalk lines and white wooden saw horses marking the separate areas. The floor was divided into three competition areas or rings so that a “class” of six to eight competitors could be showcased in each at a time. A judge stationed in each area observed the maneuvers and took turns announcing the results of the competition in his class.
This was all new to me. The program stated, “4-H Beef Showmanship Competition.” I watched the activities underway below in fascination. Each teen led his/her heifer to specified places in the ring and also paraded the cows in a circular motion around the ring. In a group of eight, most of the heifers cooperated with their handlers but occasionally they would push up against the handler, knock him/her around a bit, or even escape the handler’s hold and charge across the arena floor. These heifers would be quickly subdued once again and the competition went on. Each handler used a long stick with a comb-like tip and worked this back and forth on the cow’s underbelly; the cows seemed to like this and generally were content to stand quietly.
I wasn’t sure what the judges were looking for since animal behavior is unpredictable, but I guessed that “showmanship” meant exhibiting control over the animal and showing one’s poise in doing so. After watching the judging results from rings #1 and #2, I decided to concentrate on ring #3 and see if I could anticipate the judges’ pick. So I watched the eight competitors closely to see who seemed to be doing the best job controlling his/her heifer. There was skittishness from several of the heifers, and a few clearly didn’t want to cooperate. One young man was getting pushed around a lot by his heifer and he even resorted to slapping its nose several times.
My eyes were drawn to a girl in an orange shirt who seemed to be having a good effort in the ring. Her heifer was cooperating, went through its paces easily and stood docilely as her handler brushed the stick back and forth. Once the competition steps were completed, it wasn’t long before the judge in the ring took the microphone and announced the winner. The judge said, “This class in ring #3 has done very well. However, one person and heifer are standouts – and that would be Meghan in position number four. She’s right there wearing the orange shirt. Please join me in congratulating her.”
Wow – I actually understood what the judge was looking for. That made me think about understanding more about how Christ works, too. What about times when I’m not the most cooperative or fulfilling daily showmanship? If I just remember the hand of God touching me at all times, I’m a winner.
[Sr. Nancy Linenkugel, OSF, is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio.]