No dairy show at Delaware State Fair this year

By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor

HARRINGTON, Del. — There will be no 4-H Dairy Show at the 2012 Delaware State Fair.
Under a relocation of all dairy and beef shows to Quillen Arena and the need to adjust the show schedule accordingly, space became an issue and something had to give, officials said.
Safety of exhibitors and spectators also was a consideration.
“All those large animals packed into a small space naturally created a huge risk,” said Doug Crouse, 4-H agent and Kent County Extension director.
The decision to pull the 4-H show from the fair schedule, which emerged from a series of meetings of Extension and fair officials, was lamented by at least one 4-H mother, Heather Kerrick of Greenwood, Del., whose three daughters are involved in 4-H dairy projects.
“Our children take on their livestock as an actual 4-H project and work hard all year long,” she wrote in a letter to Susan Garey, Kent County Extension livestock agent. “How is it fair to take those shows away?”
With the elimination of the 4-H dairy show, only one other free-standing 4-H show remains on the fair schedule, the 4-H Horse Show.
4-H youngsters with goat, sheep, and swine projects, for example, have shown with their respective Junior Shows and that will be the case now for the dairy project 4-Hers.
“The Junior Show just isn’t the same,” Kerrick said.
The Junior Show, she argued, “is open to people up to the age of 21.
“Obviously, if adults are allowed to show in a ‘junior’ show, they have more resources and better animals. 4-Hers starting out in a livestock program are discouraged because they are usually beaten. The same exhibitors usually win and it is not a 4-H-friendly show.”
Crouse commented, as he put it, “the State Fair is not a 4-H fair” noting, again, that up until this year, there were only two specifically 4-H livestock events on the fairgrounds. And he surmised that elimination of the 4-H Horse Show could be under consideration in future years.
What is needed, Crouse conceded, is a new structure to house livestock shows, “but that isn’t going to happen overnight.”
The construction of an addition to the Quillen Arena was considered, according to Bill Vanderwende, superintendent of the fair’s Dairy Cattle Department, but was set aside principally for economic reasons.
Vanderwende explained that the Schabinger Pavilion, where dairy and beef cattle are housed, became too crowded, principally because of an increase in beef cattle entries, to any longer hold the 4-H Dairy Show at one end. There were 34 entries in last year’s 4-H Dairy Show.
And in scheduling its possible move to Quillen Arena. The 4-H show would have had to share the arena with the Open Show. “It was simply too crowded,” said Vanderwende.
Kerrick argued that simply recognizing the 4-Hers as part of the Junior Show ignores some basic 4-H learning opportunities.
“Raising a market/livestock animal is different than going out and buying one,” she contended. “Kids are learning how to manage time and resources, doing project books, and dealing with loss if it dies. A win means more to them because they have put so much effort into their animals.
“To not have a true 4-H show for those exhibitors gives them no reward for their hard work.
“The Delaware State Fair becomes more of a business and not the family-friendly community event that they claim to be. It makes me sad that our kids are missing out.”