GREENVILLE — With the Great Darke County Fair set to open Friday, members of the Darke County Sheep and Lamb Club are doing more than preparing their own projects for the show ring.
Club members gathered at the fairgrounds to roll up their sleeves and help prepare the sheep barn for the hundreds of exhibitors, family members and fairgoers who will make their way through the building during the nine-day fair.
For club adviser Amy Shellhaas, the work is part of getting young exhibitors ready for fair week while also teaching them the importance of helping others.
“They’re actually kind of doing a community service project to help get the barn ready for all the clubs,” Shellhaas said. “But our club in particular likes to come and help.”
The young members went to work cleaning benches and pens, straightening the aisleways and putting displays in place.
“They set up all the displays, clean up all the benches and pens in the aisleway, and put themselves to hard work and get it done,” Shellhaas said.
The work session came at an important time. Animals begin arriving Thursday night, meaning there isn’t much time left before the quiet barn becomes filled with sheep, exhibitors and the activity that comes with one of the Great Darke County Fair’s longtime junior fair traditions.
Before getting to the competition, club members also have to know what is expected of them.
Shellhaas said the club meeting included a review of the rules and regulations that members must follow when bringing their sheep to the fair and entering the show ring.
“This one is going over all the rules and regulations to show the animals, to show the sheep, getting ready to start Thursday night to bring in the animals,” Shellhaas said. “Then Friday is when we actually will start the process.”
The sheep barn will quickly become a busy place once the fair opens.
“Our big show is the first Saturday, the big Market Lamb show in here,” Shellhaas said.
Activities continue Sunday afternoon with a variety of youth events, followed by additional junior fair sheep shows Monday and Tuesday.
For the young people involved, however, participation in the Sheep and Lamb Club doesn’t necessarily require them to take an animal into the show ring.
Club member Will Magoto is an example.
Magoto elected not to show sheep this year but remained involved with the club and completed a non-livestock project — a quilt he made himself.
“He’s elected not to show sheep this year, but he’s in our sheep club, so we do non-livestock projects as well,” Shellhaas said. “So he quilted.”
That combination of livestock projects, non-livestock projects, community service and working together is part of what keeps club members busy long before the gates officially open.
Preparing the barn also gives the young exhibitors a sense of ownership in the place where they will spend much of fair week. Instead of simply arriving with their animals, they help turn an empty barn into a place ready to welcome every sheep club and exhibitor who will use it.
For Shellhaas and the Darke County Sheep and Lamb Club, the cleanup is another part of the fair experience — young people working together, learning responsibility, and lending a hand wherever needed.
By Thursday night, sheep will begin moving into the freshly prepared pens. On Friday, the Great Darke County Fair will open its gates, and the work the club members put in before opening day will give way to a week of showing animals, completing projects, competing and making fair memories.
But before the ribbons are handed out and the first lamb enters the show ring, there are benches to clean, pens to prepare and displays to put up.
The Sheep and Lamb Club members are helping make sure it’s all ready.
