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Washington County Fair thrives despite heat, humidity

By Nancy Taylor 4 min read

The Washington County Fair glided smoothly through Sunday events with no sweat.

Well, no. That's wrong. Events moved along just fine, but the afternoon offered 90-degree heat and 59% humidity. There had to be some sweat somewhere.

Some "city folk" seemed to be dragging along, but local residents who have spent their lives working on farms looked after their animals, chatted with friends and neighbors, maybe sipped some cool drinks, and just got on with things.

Sunday afternoon's events included a cake eating contest, where Village Cakery donated half-tops of cakes for the children's category and full cake tops for the adults. A slight rules infraction helped Andy Smith grab first place in the adult category. Smith's young grandson, Waylon, ran by the contestant table a couple of times and grabbed chunks of Smith's cake. Then he ran out the nearby open garage door, rounded the corner, disappeared for a brief time and returned empty-handed and smiling.

Waylon had a logical explanation: "I helped grandpa win."

Nine-year-old Ryleigh Farmer got the second-place win in her first year entering the event. Third place in the adult category looked like it was going to depend on Clayton Dildine, 17, having the stamina to finish after others had dropped out. Near the end, Dildine was simply staring at his cake container for periods of time.

Outside, two members of the Ohio National Guard were using a 20-ton wrecker for their shade. Sgt. Peter Barclay and Spc. Caleb Jacomet were on hand to answer questions about the wrecker, which they said was used to deal with broken down military vehicles. The Guard also had a crane on site earlier in the fair, Barclay said.

In the multipurpose building, Ericka Schultheis, a student at Marietta High School and Washington County Career Center, was showing her pygmy goat for the Junior Fair Goat Breeding Show. Schultheis, who is the 2023 Washington County Junior Fair Queen, took first place in the show with her goat, Pancakes.

The same building was sheltering Firecracker and Fireball, twin Holstein dairy cows born in mid-December and raised on Bohlen's Dairy Farm on Ohio 26, Cow Run Road. Barb Bohlen, standing in for her two grandsons who are showing them at the fair, said the cows had been with the family since bottle feeding started at the age of three weeks.

"When we went to feed them, those twins were always in the same position to each other," she said, motioning at the two large animals in the stall together. "The one on the right was always on the right. If it wasn't to start with, it would shift around so it was. I think they're in the same position today."

When asked about the biggest challenge in raising Holsteins, Bohlen said she didn't think there was anything really difficult. "It's like raising your children," she said. "Beef cows will be out in the pasture, but with Holsteins you're one-on-one with them every day, you're feeding them twice daily. So you notice right away if something's different, if something's wrong."

Often when they're acting differently, "it can be scours," she said. (The term refers to what humans call diarrhea.)

Bohlen said she and her husband had milked cows together for 47 years, but they quit the dairy business about four years ago because the market prices were getting too low to make it possible to operate. There have been several other dairy farms in the area that closed for the same reason, she said.

After quitting the business, though, Bohlen said she would be in town and still have the thought, "It's four o'clock. I need to get home and milk those cows at four thirty!"

"It's hard to just stop doing something you've done for 47 years," she said.

IF YOU GO: Washington County Fair Board Director Lisa McNish would like to remind residents to attend the Junior Livestock Sale at 4 p.m. Tuesday and support the youths who have worked on market projects all summer.

The entries at the sale are purchased by businesses and individuals. Although a small part of the sale money goes for upkeep of the livestock barns, most of the money goes back to the junior sellers, she said.

Market project numbers are up from last year, she said. "I know the numbers are up because our pens are all full."

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