By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Elected officials can normally be found in their political party booths at the Wood County Fair – shaking hands, stacking up votes.
But three county elected officials spent Tuesday evening at the fair stacking straw bales.
The team of Wood County Common Pleas Judge Matt Reger, Clerk of Courts Doug Cubberley and Auditor Matt Oestreich competed in the bale stacking contest in front of the fair grandstand.
The three had varying degrees of experience – and were older than the young farm boys signed up to compete.
“I hold no illusion that we will win,” Cubberley said before the contest started. But he also vowed that the team would not come in last place.
Competing in the straw bale contest was reportedly Reger’s idea.
“Judge Reger, 100%,” Oestreich said.
Oestreich, 41, came to the competition with the most experience.
“As a kid we stacked hay and straw bales all summer long,” he said. But that was quite a few harvests ago.
Reger, 54, channeled his younger self, when he used to visit his great-grandparents’ farm in the summers of his youth.
And Cubberley, 57, had some past straw tossing experience when his daughter had a horse.
Plus, “Doug has loaded college kids into a trailer,” Reger said.
Experience and age were not in their favor.
“I’m hoping there’s a masters division,” Cubberley said.
“Maybe there’s a Golden Buckeye category,” Reger said.
Another elected official, Bowling Green Municipal Court Judge Mark Reddin, watched from the grandstand, offering his moral support.
“I’m just basking in their glory,” Reddin said.
The team went into the competition with a strategy in place. Oestreich would be the stacker, Cubberley and Reger would be tossers.
That plan, however, appeared to be tossed out the window, when the contest started and the bales were flying into the back of the pickup truck.
The competition involved more than just stacking. After tossing about 30 bales – weighing 35 to 40 pounds each – into the pickup bed, the three men jumped into the truck and buckled up for a bumpy ride.
“Safety first,” Cubberley said.
With Oestreich behind the wheel, they headed through an obstacle course in front of the grandstand. At one point, two bales fell off the back – costing the team five seconds each.
Once back at the starting point, the team threw the bales off the truck and tried to stack them in an orderly fashion.
They completed the contest in about six minutes – coming in fourth place out of six teams – fulfilling Cubberley’s prediction that they would not finish last.
The winning team was Harry Reynolds and the Hagemeyer Boys.
“We were the oldest ones there,” Oestreich said. “We gave it a shot.”
