BUCYRUS—On Friday evening, ten of the Crawford County Fair’s top showmen competed to see who was the best of the best.

The Showman of Showmen competition is when the top senior livestock exhibitor (aged between fourteen to nineteen years old) from each species competes against each other, showing every one of the species that can be shown at the fair. There can only be one showman per species, so if the same person wins showmanship in more than one species, they pick which one they would like to represent. The species representative is not allowed to participate in the class for which they won. The showman with the lowest score wins.

This year’s winner was Bryce Tieben.

Tieben is a member of the Dairy Maids and Gents 4-H club through which he shows his poultry and rabbits at the fair. Tieben represented the poultry barn in the competition.

“My favorite was probably the big steers because they are big teddy bears, and my least favorite was the pigs because you’ve got a small area and it’s not the easiest thing to do,” Tieben said of the competition.

Tieben had a friendly face in the competition: his sister, Allie, who represented the rabbits.

“My sister and I, we just did it together for fun, we went and practiced around with our friends, we both tried hard,” Tieben said. “Take any opportunity you can for 4-H because it’s a good learning experience, like I said, I was just happy to do it, my sister and I went out there and had fun.”

The runner-up in the competition was Nolan McKibben.

McKibben, also a member of the Dairy Maids and Gents 4-H club, shows market goats and a beef feeder heifer at the fair.

Though placing second in showmanship for goats, McKibben got to compete because Kendal Widman, who won senior showmanship for goats this year, won Showman of Showmen last year and wasn’t allowed to compete.

“To be honest, when I started the goat showmanship the other day, I told the other people I was just trying not to get last, and then the judge just started picking other people and I don’t know, it got down to a couple of people and I thought, ‘I don’t know, I actually kind of have a shot at this,’ and I knew Kendal was probably going to win, but she won Showman of Showmen last year so she couldn’t do it this year, and I was excited to get the chance to do it,” McKibben said.

McKibben’s favorite animal to show was either the steer or the lamb he had, and his least favorite was the poultry, with poultry and rabbits being the most challenging of the species to show.

“Poultry and rabbits were the most challenging because it was all about knowledge of the animals and I had never showed them or done anything with them, and you had to know all of this stuff about diseases and body parts and stuff like that that I didn’t really know so I had to learn it in like a day,”

McKibben, who didn’t expect to get to compete, enjoyed his experience. “It was fun, I never thought I would have been able to do it. It was awesome.”

Coming in third was James Schiefer.

Schiefer, a member of Wynford FFA, shows dairy feeders and hogs at the fair.

While Showman of Showmen wasn’t necessarily his goal, he knew he wanted to do well in showmanship in both his species.

“I guess my overall goal was just to compete well in showmanship with pigs, you know we’ve been showing pigs for a lot of years and it’s always a goal of mine to place as high as I can in showmanship, and getting grand overall was just icing on the cake for us, and it was even better to compete in Showman of Showmen,” Schiefer said.

Though some species were more challenging than others, much like everyone else, Schiefer did have a favorite and least favorite.

“My favorite was probably the beef steers and my least favorite was definitely the chickens. I’m not a big chicken guy, I’m not going to lie, I’m a little scared of them,” Schiefer said.

Schiefer thanked all of his family and his friends for supporting him.

Showman of Showmen representatives:

Beef Steers – Garrett Hensel

Rabbits – Allie Tieben

Lambs – Lexie Wood

Poultry – Bryce Tieben

Goats – Nolan McKibben

Horses – Hailey Speck

Alpacas – Linnea Gerlach

Dairy Steers – Collin Langenderfer

Dairy – Connor Corwin