Scenes from Lowell: 2018 Kent County Youth Fair Edition

The Kent County Youth Fair wraps up today, and this past week has been full of fun for visitors of all ages. Here are some scenes from this year’s “Unfor-GOAT-Able” fair.

While there are rides and elephant ears and live music, the fair is first and foremost an opportunity for kids in the 4-H program to show off their animals and still exhibits.

Kids from all over the county converge on Lowell for the week. These are only the exhibitors from the dairy barn. The fair also has beef steers, hogs, sheep, goats, poultry, rabbits, guinea pigs, horses and more.

Alpacas even made an appearance at this year’s fair.

 

Ribbons decked out the stalls and cages of the winners for showmanship and other awards.

In some cases, the ribbons were almost as big as the animal who won them. That’s a guinea pig back there.

4-H isn’t only about animals though. Participants created still exhibits of all types, including paintings, research presentations and the canned goods.

New this year was an auction of still exhibits on Sunday.

Kids work hard all year long to get ready for the fair, and the livestock auction is their chance to reap the rewards of that work. Starting at noon on Thursday, livestock is auctioned off all day long. A highlight of this year’s auction was a community effort to raise funds to name the dairy barn at the new fairgrounds in honor of Freddie Oesch, a boy who died 35 years ago before he could show his steer at the fair.

Of course, you didn’t have to be a 4-H participant to enjoy the fair. An interactive barn was open for kids to try their hand at milking a cow, “pick” apples from trees and enjoy a number of other games and activities.

In a world dominated by the screens, is there anything better than watching kids run, jump and swing in the sun? Ninjas on the Move set up a free course for kids to try during the fair, and it was crowded with kids who did the course over and over and over again.

At the children’s barnyard, a number of animals were available for petting and pictures. Of course, Pickles and Picante were on-hand there too.

For adults, there was Bingo, live music and special events to watch like tractor square dancing. The Bari Lee Band was on hand to entertain on Thursday afternoon.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a fair without elephant ears, carnival rides and games.

What was your favorite part of the 2018 Kent County Youth Fair?

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