Edwardsburg teen wins Showmanship Sweepstakes

Published 9:02 am Monday, August 6, 2018

By Sarah Culton

CASSOPOLIS — Though the young champions of the Cass County Fair faced off against each other Friday evening, the contestants did not act like opponents. Instead, their spent their down time giving each other high fives and dancing with each other inside the contest arena.

“While we were in the ring it felt like a competition,” said 18-year-old competitor Nick Bradley. “But in between, it didn’t. We were laughing, making jokes. It was just really fun to hang out with each other.”

The Cass County Fair hosted its Showmanship Sweepstakes contest Friday evening. The Showmanship Sweepstakes is a contest for 4-H members where the winners of showmanship of each species of animals at the fair compete against each other. In the Showmanship Sweepstakes, contestants must show not only the species that they won with, but also every other species of animal being exhibited at the fair.

Bradley, of Edwardsburg, walked away the winner of the Showmanship Sweepstakes. A graduate of Edwardsburg High School, Bradley was the previous dairy feeder champion. Other Showmanship Sweepstakes contestants included:

•  Brianna Stockwell — swine champion

• Johnathan Tharp — dairy champion

• Carlee Burger — draft horse champion

• Nakita Mehaney — light horse champion

• Callie High — beef champion

• Emily Luthringer — goat champion

• Maddie Yuhas — sheep champion

Bradley said he was happy to have won the competition and to have competed with the other champions.

“I’m pretty excited,” he said. “It’s great to see that all the hard work over the summer and over the last week has paid off.”

More than anything though, Bradley said the Showmanship Sweepstakes was a learning experience for him. Though he had experience showing most of the animals, he had never shown dairy, light horse or draft horse before.

“Each species is hard in its own different category,” Bradley said. “Each species is different, and each representative has to do their own hard work to get there. … It was cool to work with each of the different species and to learn.”

With one more year left to show 4-H, Bradley said that in his many years of 4-H he has found that learning and meeting and interacting with new people has proven to be the most beneficial part of the program.

“I’ve gotten to meet all kinds of new people all over the state and made friendships that I’ve had ever since I was really little. It’s really special, because we are like a big family. That is the best part to me,” he said. “I’m really glad I was able to be in the Showmanship Sweepstakes and meet more people and learn new things.”

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