Just hours before competing in the Shelby County Royal competition Wednesday night at the 176th Shelby County Fair, 17-year-old Hannah Bridges was rear-ended while driving to her house.
Her car went spinning. She managed to minimize the damage. Calm her nerves. And call her parents who were still at the fairgrounds.
“It was very scary,” admitted Bridges about five hours after the accident while holding the silver belt buckle proclaiming her the winner of the Shelby County Royal. “There were pastures on either side and I was just trying not to hit a fence because I knew it would make matters a lot worse.”
Bridges did not feel settled until midway through the competition Wednesday night. It’s a testament to her showmanship ability that she did not let a frightening situation show during an event she spent so much time preparing for in advance.
“This means a lot,” she said. “I think showmanship is the biggest part of showing an animal. It takes a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of work to become a good showman on the animal you work with. You can see that tonight because these were not our animals. We’ve never seen them or touched them before.”
Being selected to compete in the Shelby County Royal is a tremendous honor. The contestants are the highest placing 4-H Senior showmanship winners in six different species – beef cattle, sheep, swine, goat, dairy cattle and horse and pony.
Bridges is comfortable showing sheep and pigs. Working with cattle is not her specialty, especially when the cattle decide to be cantankerous.
“Probably cows had me worried the most. My cow did not cooperate but, ironically, neither did my sheep,” she said with a big smile.
Wednesday’s contestants in the Shelby County Royal were Carter Fogle, Deacon DeWitt, Abigail Bridges, Lillian Dove, Maryn Sprinkle and Hannah Bridges.
Not only did Bridges have to overcome a harrowing event that may have cost her a car, she had to compete against her sister, Abigail, for the title.
“That was very hard,” she said. “She is an incredible goat showman. She has won showmanship (awards) for many, many years, but it was definitely fun having her in the ring with me.”
Each showman Wednesday had issues to overcome with animals unsure of their handlers and not overly interested in being paraded around the show ring once again. And then there was a judge for each species armed with questions about the animals to test each showman’s knowledge.
“Me, personally, I watched YouTube videos,” said Bridges of her preparation. “A lot of shows are live streamed so I will go back and watch myself or watch showmen that I know are good or that I am competing against.
“And also just daily work in the barns, getting a good relationship with your animal.”
Bridges attends the Indiana Agriculture and Technology School, a hybrid Indiana charter high school and middle school, in Trafalgar. Her goal is to attend Purdue University or Huntington University and study Ag Business or Ag Communications.
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