Deciding what to take and enter at the fair is a difficult decision, but what can make it ever harder is deciding what to bring for the first fair competition.
For Green River resident Mariska Smith this was what she had to decide in the spring.
Mariska, who is a member of the 4-H club Project Hope, said she picked pigs, drawing, vegetables, herbs and a quilt to take to Wyoming’s Big Show.
For her first time, Smith didn’t know what to expect.
Her step mother Camie Paumer said she thought her daughter may have set her goals a little too high for her first year of competing because she was disappointed with some of the outcomes. Paumer said her stepdaughter shouldn’t be disappointed in receiving red ribbons on her first year.
Smith received a red ribbon for her tomatoes, a blue ribbon for her bell pepper and jalapenos, a red ribbon for her quilt, a purple ribbon for her drawing and a first place and reserve grand champion ribbon for her rosemary.
“I was very surprised,” Smith said. “It’s my first year and I didn’t think I would get that high up.”
Smith was just happy to even have vegetables to enter in the fair.
“We lost all of our veggies in that storm,” Paumer said.
The storm Paumer is referring to, it the huge hail storm Green River had in June that knocked out windows, punched holes into siding and destroyed many resident’s roofs.
“It beat them (the veggies) to the ground,” Paumer said. “We had to start over.”
“I was upset,” Smith said. “We were trying to pull them into the house. They were already ruined before we did.”
Smith said her vegetables were planted in a 100-pound container pot and she and Paumer just couldn’t get them into the house. One container plant they were able to save was the rosemary.
As for the quilt, it was also a first for Smith. The rainbow-colored quilt took Smith a couple weeks to make. One week was focused on cutting and pinning the quilt together; and the following week she sewed it all together.
“That was miserable, I stabbed my finger so many times,” Smith said. “This was my first quilt. Before that, I made a pillow case for my dog.”
“She’s new to all of this,” Paumer said.
During the judging, Smith wasn’t sure what to expect.
“It was kind of nerve racking,” Smith said.
However, Smith said she learned a lot during the judging. The judges gave her tips on how to improve every one of her projects. She not only intends to take items to the fair next year in the same categories she did this year, she plans on adding more next year.
Mariska Smith was super excited to receive a reserve grand champion ribbon for her rosemary and a red ribbon for her quilt.
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