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My Farm Roots: Showtime At The Fair

Grant Gerlock/Harvest Public Media
17-year-old Emily Lambrecht has been showing cattle at the county fair since 2009.

Show day at the Pierce County Fair in Nebraska starts early and goes fast.

I arrived around 9 in the morning, but Emily Lambrecht had already spent an hour and a half in the wash stalls, scrubbing and shampooing her calves so they would sparkle in the show barn.

This was showtime. The 17-year-old 4-H and FFA exhibitor spent months working up to this one day.

Credit Grant Gerlock/Harvest Public Media
Before the cattle show, each animal is washed and dried and their fur is styled for the show. It takes Emily Lambrecht hours to get her cattle ready.

There was the time spent selecting show calves from the family herd, then catching and taming those calves so they would walk obediently with a rope halter, like a dog on a leash. Once they’re used to a halter, the calves need to know how to stand square for the livestock judge to scrutinize their genetically derived attributes.

The purple and blue ribbons given to the county fair winners are nice rewards, but Lambrecht doesn’t just show animals at the fair to chase garlands. She also does it for the connection she feels both with her cows and also the other competitors.

“I just like running into people with my animals,” she said. “We both know how much time and work goes into these animals and that we both love it no matter what happens. Everyone wants purples, but it doesn’t matter. It should be between you and your animal. If you love it, it should be between you and your animals.”

At the fair, Lambrecht can bond with other farm kids over their days spent in the farm yard coaxing their calves to take orders. But she is also aware that there aren’t many people her age who have that kind of hands-on experience with the animals that may eventually end up on their plate.

Credit Grant Gerlock/Harvest Public Media
Spectators watch the cattle judging in the makeshift show ring at the Pierce County Fair.

“I was trying to get a friend out (to the farm) and he says ‘I‘m not a country kid,’” Lambrecht said.

Credit Grant Gerlock/Harvest Public Media
The Lambrecht family has piles of buckets in their stall in the cattle barn filled with corn, hay, and other supplies for fair week.

She told him, “That’s not the point. I want to show you a cow. You’ve never touched a cow. You have no idea what it’s like. People have the wrong perception of what people do on the farm. It would be nice to show them sometime.”

Credit Grant Gerlock/Harvest Public Media
The prize table for the Pierce County cattle show is piled with trophies and ribbons.

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Credit Grant Gerlock/Harvest Public Media

Harvest Public Media's reporter at NET News, where he started as Morning Edition host in 2008. He joined Harvest Public Media in July 2012. Grant has visited coal plants, dairy farms, horse tracks and hospitals to cover a variety of stories. Before going to Nebraska, Grant studied mass communication as a grad student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and completed his undergrad at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. He grew up on a farm in southwestern Iowa where he listened to public radio in the tractor, but has taken up city life in Lincoln, Neb.
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