Parkers wrap up State Fair competition

DWIGHT, Ill. — The Parkers wrapped up a successful weekend at the Illinois State Fair livestock show and returned to their farm Aug. 10 with ribbons in hand.

Dan and Erika Parker’s daughters, Sarah and Katy, had different perspectives at this year’s fair.

Sarah, who is entering her senior year at Dwight Township High School, had entries in the livestock competition, and for Katy, a sophomore agriculture education major at the University of Illinois, this was her first year not showing livestock.

“My Duroc got first in its class in the open show and my Crossbred got third. In the junior show, the Duroc got third. So, it went well,” Sarah said.

“The fair was great. I got to see a lot of people that I haven’t seen in a while, friends from school and other people. It was great to watch everybody. This was my first year not showing, so I got to see a different side of it. I liked being able to help everybody else and kind of help my younger cousins who were there,” Katy noted.

Sarah and Katy have been showing swine at fairs through 4-H for about 10 years and showed cattle for seven of those years, as well.

The sisters were asked about their favorite aspects of showing livestock at fairs.

“My favorite part about showing pigs and livestock in general is meeting everybody, growing your network, getting to meet new people, making friends that will last a lifetime, learning new things and learning how to be responsible. Also, find your competitive side, find something that you’re passionate about and find something that you should be proud to be exhausted by it,” Sarah said.

“My favorite parts are just kind of working with the animals, meeting all of the different people through their livestock industry and being able to learn from them about how they became so passionate about this industry,” Katy said.

“I’m going into ag education. So, being able to take everything that I’ve learned throughout my time in this industry and pass it down to future generations, whether it be my cousins or the kids that I’ll meet through the classroom.”

FFA has been an important part of their high school experience, and Sarah and Katy have left their marks in the Dwight program.

“I was the secretary, then vice president and then president. I was active all throughout high school,” Katy said.

“One of my favorite parts was getting to know the people throughout the school and trying to help develop that program, especially coming out of COVID when you saw a large decrease in the amount of after-school activities that people and kids were involved in. So, trying to help get our program back up and using other schools as kind of an example for what I wanted our school to look like was very helpful and being able to work so closely with a whole bunch of kids in the area to work on projects, set community events up and do community service work.

“For example, we have our sweet corn that can be picked up at the high school on Thursday, Aug. 14. That’s one of our main community service events where we’ve provide the sweet corn free of cost to the community as a way of saying thank you for supporting us throughout the school year.”

“I’ve been involved in our FFA since my freshman year. It’s definitely grown in the past six or four years, however you want to put it. My favorite part is definitely being able to see the progress in our chapter, the impact that our chapter officers and our adviser has on the other kids and our school and being able to put agriculture in a positive light and kind of bring it more into the light for our school so that more kids have know more about it,” Sarah added.

“During my freshman year, I was the only junior officer team. I was secretary as a sophomore, vice president as a junior and this year I’ll be president.

“One thing that we’re starting this year, with a tentative date of Sept. 12, is we’re doing a farm safety day or just education day for our plot, and we’re hoping to get many grade levels involved, including the grade school levels.

“So, me and my chapter officer, Sam Bunting, have been putting together some things for that, making brochures, making posters and kind of educating them on equipment safety, all the processes of putting in the plot, taking out the plot and what we’re looking for in it. Our entire officer team and our adviser have been a great help into putting that into play.”

Dan added, “It’s been a great run. It’s been great helping the kids get started, then letting them take their projects over and seeing how the could build their projects. It’s been a great run for them and I’m real proud of what they’ve done with them.”