Grandmother unhappy with events at fair

I am a grandmother who is quite upset at the handling of some of the projects at the fair. It was more of an “un-fair” than a fair showing of some of the projects

My first objection is how my grandchildren were treated in their horse projects. Two of the horses are rescue horses and are quite old and are thin, but they are being loved and taken care of probably for the first time in their lives. One of these horses went through the entire project last year with no incident, and was thinner than now.

This year, both horses went through “Horse Camp,” the qualifying horse show and one was present at the Family Fun Night, the second part of the 4H Qualifying horse show — the 11-year-old girls and the 14-year-old boy were told they could not compete because their horses were too old, too skinny, and “an embarrassment to the fair.”

If this was indeed the problem, it should have been brought up a long time before the fair instead of being a horrible, hurtful surprise at the fair and a waste of all their hard work in the project.

These children kept smiling at everyone, continued to do their “barn duty” and tried to accept the decision with more politeness than most adults would have shown.

My next objection is in reference to the “Grand Champion Showmanship,” what used to be called the “Round Robin.”

When these kids join a project at the beginning of the 4H year, they have no idea how many entries that particular project will have. My 11-year-old granddaughter won the Grand Champion showman in her dairy project, as, I believe, did the child in the dairy goat project.

The judges are not obligated to award a Grand Champion ribbon due to lack of entries, yet he decided that these children did a good job and did award them. Yet they were completely excluded from the Grand Champion Showmanship because there wasn’t at least three animals in their projects.

In 2007 an exception was made for a single entry project, but someone “decided” that the same exception should not be made for children this year. Why are we punishing our hard working 4-H kids for taking the more difficult projects?

The projects that only involve hard work and they don’t make money at the market sale? This, I believe, is not about fairness or high prices at the market sale. I believe this is all about someone feeling self important, singling out children and excluding them in a very hurtful way.

I, and many others I have talked with since, would like to see some changes in the showing practices at next year’s fair, and after. I would like to see the “Grand Champion Showmanship” done away with as it is and go back to the old method of the “Round Robin,” where it doesn’t matter if there is only one project entered because only the champion animals are brought in and shown.

I say, let all the children enter and make it a true “Grand Champion Showman” award. The children that have done the job, worked hard, made all the meetings and proven themselves worthy by being awarded the champion ribbon, should never be excluded because “it takes too long,” or because a certain showman “hates showing dairy cows.” Stop being unfair to the children.

Alice Hinthorn

Copeland