you
On the next part of our morning show, we talk about some goings on with youth in the area.
And we're going to talk about the junior dairy exhibitors, the adult supervisor for that organization, Jody Cornell is in the studio along with Anna Cornell and Catherine Steadley.
We're going to talk about the recent state fair.
Look ahead to the county fair.
Jody, how are things going?
They're going good.
Thanks for having us on this morning, Phil.
So we, yeah, we participated in the state fair.
Um, it was back at the first part of August, so it's been a couple of weeks already.
Um, and we had a really good time.
It only took two kids this year and that's too bad.
I wish more were, would go and have the experience, but, um, and our two lovely ladies talk about what they did and how they did and that sort of thing.
Let's talk about the name change.
First of all,
Oh yeah, we, we change.
So our name changed this year.
We're now the.
junior dairy exhibitors of original county.
And we did that more to maybe focus a little bit more on, um, on what we're really trying to do.
And that's to help youth exhibit dairy.
Um, so it's our goal to make that more affordable for youth and to assist them if they need something to, um, including, you know, getting there, um, fitting whatever it takes to get them in the ring and showing dairy cattle.
Trying to encourage more members and you've done that you've talked about that in the past You don't necessarily have to live on a dairy farm to be a member of the group.
Yeah, you don't and Like for some shows it doesn't matter a lot of shows though You do need to have registered cattle which can make it a little bit tougher for some but We got we still have registered breeders in the county and we still have cattle out there that if someone is really looking to show and wants to try it out We can get an animal of most any age to
to go to a show.
Quite a commitment to go to state fair.
That's a year long preparation, isn't it?
Yeah, it starts way before the fair and it's, you know, it's a very, it's also a very expensive habit, I guess I'd like to say.
I mean, we do some fundraising and stuff and we try to keep our, the expenses for the youth down to as low as we possibly can because it can really drag out
Just you know a good friend of Mars I actually stayed with a different county while at State Fair this year I stayed in a dorm room with Iowa County and Just a freak thing Iowa County had a fire in the shed where they had
all of their stuff gathered to go to the fair was only 10 days before the fair and they lost everything and had to start over from scratch and and not you know not just the logistics of finding it all and getting it all put back together and all that but the expense of having to cover stuff you know and and we have a lot of good support here in the county too that we have places that will help us out and help us get there and so um
I'll talk a little bit more about that when we get to County Fair.
I would guess Iowa County, though.
I've been guessing some people stepped up and help
them.
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
They got a lot of things, you know, they, they still got a lot of donations to help them get there and that sort of thing.
But people just, I think sometimes, um,
That we don't really think about the expense of going and that was actually one of the reasons that we started this group was to be able to get the kids all together at different times of the year do some fundraising do some Community outreach and find that support because at one point it was getting to where it was It was like Ford almost $500 a kid
To go to the fair and that gets to be really pricey and then when you have families with multiple kids and stuff It gets you know exponentially pricey as you go.
So that's part of part of what we try to do is try to Keep the kids maybe from making that total investment.
We got clippers that we loan out we have
Heather, my wife has started a collection of white pants and we have white pants and almost every size imaginable as kids phase out parents will be like here, you might as well have our white pants.
And, and so we have a huge collection of white pants and we're always telling people don't buy white pants just for showing because if you tell us what size you need, we probably have that size white pants and we have boys and girls both in it.
You know, it's just one of those things you don't have to go out and spend money on.
which is nice.
This day and age is just you can spend money everywhere and it costs a lot to go to the fair.
So I shouldn't realize that Jody, but in my mind, I'm thinking of 40, 50 year old 50 year ago rates, you know, to go to state fair.
It's it's gone up considerably.
Yeah, it's gone up terribly.
And I mean, you know, and there's so much that maybe isn't people don't realize it goes into it too.
I mean, you got your bedding, you got your feed.
But you have all of your equipment.
You need to have some forks.
You need to have some rakes.
You need a broom.
You need a wheelbarrow or some sort of catch basin, you know, and you need feed pans.
You need just the list just keeps going on and on.
And then all of a sudden you throw in there too.
And the girls will touch on that a little bit.
You got herdsmanship.
So you got to do decorations and not knocking our county fair.
I think we have some really, really beautiful decorations out there.
But the state fair is a little bit
Above that another level maybe if you want to go that way And it's a competition too they have herdsmanship at the state fair just like they do at county fair
And you know, you can end up putting a lot into decorations just to and a lot of times those are one time thing.
The theme changes every year.
And so all of your banners and things that have the theme on them are basically obsolete for the following year.
So there's just a lot of money that goes into it that our group tries to help support the kids and tries to make that more affordable for everyone.
Tony, maybe you could say a few words about these two ladies you brought along here today.
So today we have Anna Cornell, my daughter, and we have Catherine Steadley with us.
And Catherine actually shows one of our registered animals at the fair at State Fair and she's took it this year for the second time.
So again, you don't necessarily have to have registered animals.
Catherine lives on a farm and they have cattle.
I don't know.
You may have some registered cattle too.
Not too many, but.
Okay, so Catherine is chosen to just basically borrow an animal and and she works with it during the summer it stays at her place and she takes care of it and and Works with it and has it ready to go for the fair and so you don't have to have animals and and you don't have to necessarily even have room to take an animal and work with it You can always come
to someone else's place and work with it there too.
There's lots of people who would be just tickled to have a young person be interested in showing an animal.
How do
we go for you this year, Catherine, at State Fair?
I think it went good.
Could have gone better, but I think it went good.
Is it a nervous time getting ready and anticipating of going to Milwaukee?
Yeah.
How many hours do you think you put in during the year?
Any idea?
I have
no clue.
Yeah.
It takes a lot.
I wanted to ask you about the Herdsmanship and what went into that this year?
Well, we had to have everything nicely decorated and we had to make sure everything was clean and put together.
What was the theme or what did you go with this year?
It was 175 years of showing off Wisconsin Dairy.
So you had a lot to work with then.
Yeah,
absolutely.
So and overall things went well.
What about how did you place the
state?
I got participation for showmanship and fourth in the show.
What about you, Anna?
How did it go this year?
I took three.
So I took a jersey at Fall Yearling and Milk that I also took last year as a jersey fall calf.
And she was second in her class and first bread known.
uh... i took a hosting senior two-year-old and she was second as well and i also took a milking short-horned spring calf and she was six dinner class
you spent a lot of time with those animals they become pets don't they?
yeah um especially the jerseys they're basically already pets when they're born and then they just become more pets as you work with them
And you both were showing you've been how many times you've been a state fair Catherine twice twice.
Okay.
And next year you plan to go back next year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about you Anna?
Uh, yeah, this was my second year being eligible for state fair.
So
you have some fun down there.
Let's let's talk about some behind the scenes stuff because I understand there was something called barn hockey.
What is that?
So one behind the scenes thing that nobody sees is we play barn hockey out in the behind the scenes area.
And basically, they round up as many tools as they can, and people come out, all the kids come out, and they have this ball made of duct tape, and they have plastic shovels, and this year there was a shaving fork that broke as soon as the game started.
And they try to get the ball into the goal, which is three shaving pegs on each end.
And the goal is to get as many points as you can, and then there's a makeshift trophy that you win.
And this year was made out of a chair and some random other things.
Wow.
So did you win it
then?
No.
Usually mostly the older kids play.
It's like the seniors, the graduates, so.
Okay barn hockey.
I'll have to learn that the rules I'm afraid
to tell you so there aren't much for anyone hurt and The plastic utensils are used because it does get kind of rough.
Yeah
Good clean fun.
These
two weren't the ones that started the fight on that Sunday night at the State Fair.
We were not there.
We were already headed for home when that broke out.
Thank heavens.
That was a good thing.
Yes.
You guys looking for county fair.
Let's talk about that a little bit.
Anna, what about county
fair?
I'm taking that four dairy, I think, four or five.
So I have a Jersey cow and a Holstein cow that I took to State Fair.
the milking short and spring calf that I took to state fair and then two other spring calves.
A lot of work for you.
Yeah.
And how do you manage the time?
Because you're going to be going back to school.
I hate to say this, but next week,
how do you
manage your time when school starts?
So I have to of course do my homework.
I also to the fair and taking a cow calf pair for beef.
And I also have me and my brother between me and my brother.
We have 21 cages of rabbits.
So.
Yeah, I have to be very time-manageable so that I can work with my dairy and my rabbits and my beef and still get all my homework done.
Well, good luck with that.
Katherine, what about you?
What are you taking to County Fair this
year?
I am taking two winter yearlings.
One is a Holstein and one is the Ayrshire that I took to State Fair.
And do you take any other animals or projects?
We're also taking
two turkeys each me and my One of my younger sisters
turkeys.
All right.
Good.
What do you have to do to get them ready?
What are some special things that you do?
Not really much You just have to make sure they're used to being worked with being touched handled And you have to know what the judges are gonna ask about so you can answer their questions
So they're not so skittish then yeah and get them ready good Jody, I know we want to talk a little bit about some of the things coming up for the the fair First of all, there's a silent auction you'd like to talk about
Yeah, so we're gonna do a silent auction.
We did one a couple years ago There'll be three baskets to bid on or three they're actually gonna be like mini coolers to bid on we're open people will swing through the Dairy barn and take a look at what they are and possibly throw a bid on them it'll be going on probably until Saturday night and
We're trying to raise some funds, of course it's always expensive and we have some things that the group would like to have for possibly traveling to more shows and so that's primarily what it'll be used for is purchasing things.
We're also tentatively looking at possibly starting like a scholarship program for exhibitors as far as like say you wanted to go to the
Holstein show that's held in Lancaster in the summer for the District 3 Holsteins.
We're looking at trying to maybe start a program where
Um, our group would help you with like, say a $25 scholarship that you could put towards your transportation fees, your entry fees, or just possibly some, something you need for fitting or something you need for feed, um, for that show.
And, um, right now we're looking at it would be a one once a year thing for each person.
So you couldn't just say, well, I'm going to go to six shows.
I'd like you to pay me for six shows.
That's not how it's going to work.
It would be.
one show for the summer.
So if there's anybody out there who'd like to show something, they're thinking, wow, it's going to be really expensive to go and we got to pay for all this stuff.
We're looking at finding a way to help them out even more than what we would do right now.
This would be like something that they could use any way they wanted to.
So you can look for that during the original county
fair?
Yeah.
So during the county fair, it'll be ready on Thursday while it's set up and it'll just be a
Walk by place a bid on it and like I said, it's just gonna be a silent auction.
So
Could you go over the timeline of events that gonna change this year at the county?
No, I think everything's pretty much gonna be the same as it as it's always been the dairy show will be Saturday morning starting at 9 o'clock Doesn't we're not gonna have a huge group of dairy.
So it'll go pretty quickly.
I think it'll move right along I do want to talk about
Another thing that's going to be at county fair.
So we will put up the display that was at the state fair will be put up in the barn This year was celebrating 175 years of showing off Wisconsin dairy.
And so we went with our theme or our our Display was past State Fair participation for Merchants County.
We had a lot of really nice help up with that Including some of the ladies around the county who have led
not just going to State Fair, but like Pat Ripsch and with the junior Holstein group and stuff.
We went back a long ways.
We had a network of friends that all got together and we got some pictures from as far back as I believe our oldest one was from 1963.
Walk through the barns, take a look at our collage.
Our one wall is a collage of nothing but pictures and names from earlier years that have traveled to State Fair.
We're going to have a some kind of a notebook or possibly a whiteboard.
I'm not sure exactly how it's going to look, but we're going to put something there.
And if you know somebody who went to state fair and you can't find their name on our board, please put them on our list for us.
If you have anything that you'd like to put up, you know, say you actually have a picture of yourself that you went to state fair and we either didn't get in touch with you or we didn't get one, you know, throw another picture up there.
It would be awesome.
But we have.
And we've also named as many of the farms that kids came from as we possibly could.
Not knowing everyone and not knowing everyone's farm names, but I've been doing this for quite a while and I knew a lot, but we got a lot of help.
We got help from Bill and Nancy Geer.
We got help from Pat Ripsch and like I said, we got help from Connie Turgesson.
We got some help from Gretchen Knable.
All these ladies helped us put together more names, more pictures, but
If, like I said, if you walk by and you, you know, Joe Smith went to state fair with me way back in such and such a time and we don't have their name up there, we would love to have you add their name to our list.
I think we went through some really nice scrapbooks that Pat had and it just brought up a lot of memories and a lot of stuff.
And so stop by and look at our wall and see what, see what you could add to it.
So.
A lot of people remember back in the days when, you know, there were so many more farms, but, you know, you'd fill up a building and a half.
Oh yeah, there were so, you know, way back we were taking 35 head.
I think they kind of maxed us out at about 35 head that could go and we would have one aisle of the barn completely full of just Richland County cattle.
And that was a lot of fun and it was really cool.
And some of the pictures will show some of those lineups as well.
So good memories.
Yeah.
Good memories.
Yeah.
And we also have, um, the plaques that have been collected and stuff as far as like for herdsmanship winning and, um, for, um, there's some for club herd, which they don't do anymore, but they used to do club herd and your, uh, we have plaques that have been collected throughout the years also thrown up on that wall.
So, and that the girls didn't tell you that, but they actually placed seventh.
10th, 10th in hergemanship this year, which was a little short of our goal, but there were some extenuating circumstances there.
And then we also placed our educational display, which will be up also placed second for our group, our group.
So that was a really good feat.
I like that.
That means you're really putting something out there.
that, that is teaching the public something.
And we also fitted that in to be with the 175 years of the fair.
So
that's all about educating too, you know, and especially to go to the state fair level or some that probably don't know where their products come from.
Oh yeah.
That's, you know, I always, I love that part.
I love when the people stop and they're like, you know, what is this?
Oh, that one's brown.
It gives chocolate.
No, it doesn't give chocolate milk, you know, or, you know, they just, the one thing that the girls do a lot of too is
the kids love to just touch an animal.
They just die to touch an animal.
Can we touch one?
Can we touch one?
It's like, yeah, go ahead, touch one.
Because that's really actually kind of frowned upon.
And I understand why it's frowned upon too, but it's like, really, these people never see an animal.
This is the closest they're going to get to a cow.
you know, let's let them pet one and see what it's really like.
And some of them are just like, Oh, is it going to kick?
You know, is it going to kick?
Is it going to walk on me?
Or, you know, what's, is it going to bunt me?
And it's like, no, you know, they just, they don't really have a full comprehension of how tame they are and how, how much the kids have worked with them.
My cousins from the city, I was used to worry about the cows biting them.
Are they going to bite me?
That's the least of your worries.
Are you both involved in 4-H?
Yes.
For what club?
I'm in the Buena Vista Wonder Workers.
Okay.
And how's that been going this year,
Catherine?
Uh, that's been going, it's been going good.
Good.
What projects do you have this year with 4-H?
Um, I have the dairy, the turkeys, and then I'm taking in some crops, garden stuff, food, food's nutrition, and I'm doing, oh,
What working project
would look with that.
Yeah, I'm guessing you have already to go for the fair already, don't you?
What about you Anna?
Which
club?
So I'm part of Casanovia willing workers and I have
a lot of projects.
I do arts and crafts which covers way too many things to name them all.
I have this paint pour that I'm taking in and some diamond painting that I do and I'm also doing a woodworking project and sewing projects and I have dairy, rabbits, beef and
Flowers are one of the hardest things for me, mostly because they don't go in on Wednesday.
They go in Tuesday night right after school.
So that is a very tricky thing to manage because you have to get home from school and then go and get your flowers because you can't pick them the day before because then they're going to go bad before the fair.
So that is a tricky thing for me to figure out because you have to go that night to get them.
So it's a very, very time management.
Good luck with that.
And hopefully it doesn't frost or anything like that.
Yeah.
Hopefully later frost.
Well, ladies, good luck.
Nice to have you back in the studio here and congratulations on the state fair and how that went.
We'll see you at the fair.
Thank you
the next level or I guess the county fair, right?
That's kind of the first level then the state comes the next
year
gets its artworks and then you want to add today Jody?
Just if there's anyone out there who'd like to show dairy we'd be more than happy to Set you up and help you out.
You can always find us.
We're pretty much in the dairy barn for the entire fair, so Sleeping out there, right?
I spend a lot of nights out there.
Yes
Well, good luck with that.
It'll be here before we know it a couple weeks
Jody Donies joining Cornell adult supervisor for the junior dairy exhibitors and also joining us today Anna Cornell and Catherine steadily in this portion of the morning show