By Kaitlyn Geiger
CCN Correspondent

BUCYRUS ­— Friday evenings at the fair are reserved for the ten showmen who have earned the privilege to be in the showman of showmen competition. To participate in the competition, the exhibitors must win the senior showmanship for their species, so he or she may compete in this competition to see who is the best, or the showman of showmen.

Throughout the competition, it was a tight race between last year’s winner Lori Millenbaugh, Emily Rudd, and Emma Studer. In the end though, it was Studer who won the prestigious title of Showman of Showmen, and Rudd who took second.

In this event, each individual is asked to be able to show each of the animal species that is exhibited at the fair, excluding their own.

“My favorite part of the whole experience was showing the different types of livestock, because I am used to lambs and goats, so showing different species was awesome,” Rudd said.

Rudd added that the hardest animal for her to show was the chicken, and her favorite to show, other than her own, was the beef steer.

When Studer was asked how it felt to win against so many quality competitors, she said that it was a great feeling and she was blessed with the opportunity to be in the competition.

Her favorite animal to show was the beef feeder because she said that she felt very comfortable showing it and it worked well with her, and her least favorite was either the goat or lamb because she is not as comfortable with those.

The hardest part of this whole experience for Studer was finding the time to learn how to show each of these animals.

“I have a horse show every day of the week, yesterday I showed for ten hours,” Studer said. “Finding time to learn how to show all of these animals was hard because I would only have fifteen or thirty minutes to learn each one, and I also had to teach other exhibitors how to show horses. Going out and actually doing it and remembering all that is also really complicated.”

If an exhibitor wins senior showmanship with more than one of their species, they choose which animals they would like to compete for, and the reserve showmanship winner then competes on behalf of the species the winner chose to exempt himself or herself from. If an exhibitor won in any previous years, they are not allowed to compete for that species again.

The animal species involved are horses, dairy cows, goats, dairy beef feeders, lambs, alpacas, beef steers, swine, rabbits, and poultry.

Each species has a different judge who ranks each exhibitor on a scale from one to nine, and at the end, the individual with the lowest score wins. The judges make their decisions based on how the individual does showing the animal and by asking a few questions, seeing if the exhibitor knows the answer.

Studer said another thing that she was happy about, was getting to do what she loves. “I love 4-H because it has impacted my life in so many ways, and just being able to get that total 4-H experience is really great.”

The following individuals all competed in the showman of showmen competition and are listed with the species they represented.

Rebecca Davis – Horses

Natalie Goldfuss – Dairy

Emily Rudd – Goats

Emma Rhodes – Dairy Beef Feeders

Michelle Flock – Lambs

Mariah Cotsamire – Alpacas

Lori Millenbaugh – Beef steer

Kelsie Williams – Swine

Madison Tieben – Rabbit

Emma Studer – Poultry