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Tuesday morning at 8 a.m., crowds
of children gathered under the roof of the KC Pavilion at the Logan
County Fair.
Children competed for medals, trophies, and fair food prizes by
pedaling a tractor that had a trailer attached to it with weights in
the back. Whoever could pedal it fastest and the furthest would win
the competition.
Three different categories were in place to keep the competition
fair among the kids participating. The groups were divided into
lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight with the competition
starting with the smallest of the group first.
Being the first one to start is always hard, and some of the younger
children were more timid when approaching the tractor. However,
competitor Arainna Myers hit the ground running from where she was
seated in waiting. She jumped onto the tractor from her sprint and
before anyone could say a word to her about how to pedal it she was
pushing to the end of the race. She won first place in her division.
Elliot Bruns was the winner of the
middleweight category then followed Craig Hayes, who ran a close
race against his competitors.
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All first-place winners were
awarded trophies for their effort, and second and third-place
winners won medals. However, everyone was a winner and was given a
t-shirt, handed out by a child family member of one of the helpers
at the event, Sam Opperman.
Opperman, as well as President
Reagen Tibbs, explained the details of the Logan County Farm Bureau
Young Leaders group.
They shared that the organization has been around for around 40
years now and performs about 7-8 tractor pulls per year. Tibbs
stated that this is an organization that “Supports anything we can
in the community.”.
As well as performing tractor pulls, it was stated that they would
set up tours for high school children in F.F.A. The organization
lets students from Olympia, Mt. Pulaski, Lincoln, and Hartsburg join
the tours. These tours have included a variety of different
facilities such as a wind farm in Hopedale, Bloomington Meats, and
Precision Planting in Tremont.
Not only do high schoolers get tours of local agriculture areas, but
the Logan County Farm Bureau Young Leaders organization also raises
money for scholarships for the students. This is done through an
annual golf tournament that the organization puts on around every
4th of July weekend.
The Logan County Bureau Young Leaders is not just for children,
however. This organization is a group for anyone between the ages of
18 to 25 interested in agriculture. Meetings are on the second
Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the Logan County Farm Bureau
office.
[Sophia Larimore] |
