By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Some of the goats were a little jumpy and the beef a little pushy Saturday evening as they inadvertently tried to rattle the nine Wood County Junior Fair members who were competing for the title of Showmanship Sweepstakes Champion.
The showmanship sweepstakes pits the species show champions against one another as they vie to be named the best of the best across all nine species: beef, dairy beef, dairy goats, horses, market goats, poultry, rabbits, sheep and swine. In the competition, they show all the animals except the one in which they won.
They all proved they could keep their cool when challenged by an animal they weren’t as familiar with, but in the end, it was Simply Livestock 4-H member and Otsego High school senior Carter Lampe who earned the champion title. He also received a silver belt buckle from the family of Jamie Belleville, a longtime beef producer who passed away in 2019.
Lampe’s best friend, Noah Lang, from Eastwood High School and a member of Simply Livestock, was named reserve champion in the sweepstakes. He competed on behalf of the market goat department.
The other competitors and the departments they represented were Katelyn Barnhart, poultry; Logan Brinker, sheep; Hannah Lang, swine; Nora Menzie, dairy cattle; Emma Reid, dairy goats; Ella Schuessler-Recker, horses; Madison Weichman, rabbits.
As the top showman in the junior fair beef department, Lampe handled the large and small animals in the sweepstakes with an adept hand and a calm demeanor. Though he gained the ticket to the sweepstakes by being the best in the show ring with large beef cattle, he also showed sheep and pigs. It was the horse that worried him the most during the sweepstakes.
“Horses are so big. I know how to control a big animal, but with a horse, you can pull it and it will buck its head and then not be very nice,” he said. “There’s a lot of little details that go into it. That was the hardest for me, focusing on some of those little details.”
From the time he was named beef showmanship champion on Wednesday, he only had a short span of three days to learn and practice how to show the other animals. The time was cut shorter because of morning football practice and a trip to the Ohio State Fair on Thursday.
“It was a little nerve-wracking,” he said to learn to show some of the animals that he’d never shown before. He had to find people he knew who could provide quality information and teach him the skills he would need for the contest.
His favorite animal to show in the sweepstakes was the dairy cow. “That was one I wasn’t sure of at all but then I learned from someone when I was down at the state fair. I heard I went to one of the best in the biz,” Lampe said. “It was just different, but it was a way to show off a new talent.”
When his name was called, he said he mostly felt relief. “I’ve been showing since I was nine years old, so I knew I had what it took to do it, but there were three, four, five others in the lineup that easily could have done it too.”
Besides winning the title, the highlight for him was being in the competition with his closest friends. “We’ve been battling our whole lives. We are still pushing each other even here. It was a relief that the hard work paid off,” especially with him and his best friend Lang earning the champion and reserve champion honors.
He also drew on the strength of his entire family being in the audience, from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents to sisters, aunts and cousins. Those are some of the same people who have been with him as he grew up holding baby lambs or breaking baby calves, he said.
To him, the award means he is “part of an industry that I love.” He appreciates being able to represent more than just the beef, sheep and hog industries. “Being able to showcase and understand all the parts of the livestock industry really made the award special,” he said. “This has been a goal I’ve been working on my whole life. It’s a moment I’ve dreamed of.”
