Sure, the ribbons and banners are nice.
Chanlynn Wrestler has made a habit of experiencing immediate success at the Allen County Fair.
The 16-year-old daughter of Derek and Molly Wrestler earned a purple ribbon the first time she took part in the style review, the first time she showed a pig, even the first time she entered a foods project.
Younger brother Ryker, 11, is following a similar path, earning a purple with his first ever woodworking project.
But as much as the early success has brought personal satisfaction, preparing for the fair is about the learning — and the teaching.
“I really enjoy helping people out,” Chanlynn explains. “We’ve been showing pigs from Day 1, but a lot of my friends haven’t, so they don’t really know what they’re doing. There are people who need help.”
So as they’re preparing their own animals to enter the show arena, it’s nothing for Chanlynn and Ryker to offer up helpful tips to younger 4-H’ers about what to do in front of the judges.
The way they figure, it’s a matter of paying it forward, to showing the same courtesy to others as they were shown when they were first starting.
Chanlynn explains:
“When we first got started, we didn’t know anything about showing,” she said.
But Mike Hurt of Buffalo, the farmer from whom they purchased their first hogs, did. So did the Leck family of Neodesha, also renowned for their work with swine.
“They really told us what to do,” Chanlynn said. “Mike and the Lecks really became part of our team and came out here and helped us. We learned so much from them and grew successful.”
The Wrestlers will hope to build on that success with the 130th Allen County Fair, which runs through Sunday at Iola’s Riverside Park.
THE FAIR is in the midst of a jam-packed schedule for the Wrestler siblings.
The Wrestlers also take part in the Eastern Kansas Swine Show Series during the spring, and will travel to the Kansas Junior Livestock Show in Hutchinson, on top of the Kansas State Fair, and then the American Royal in Kansas City later in the fall.
And then there’s school, which starts in mid-August, and sports season. Chanlynn, who will be a junior at Humboldt High School, plays volleyball, basketball and softball. Ryker, who is about to enter sixth grade at Humboldt Middle School, is entering his first year of football, so morning and evening practices are a constant.
“We have to remind the kids when school starts about all the things they have to look forward to,” explained Molly Wrestler, their mother.
Tending to the animals takes a large amount of their schedule as well, usually an hour or more a day to get their hogs used to following commands, to feed them and now as the fair arrives, to get them cleaned up for the show.
