Despite school being out of session, Makenna Lybarger is going to be quite busy during Fall Break. The Eastland Career Center junior will be showing animals during the Fairfield County Fair and will be competing to be named Fairfield County Junior Fair Queen.
Makenna was one of 10 young women to be named a finalist for this year’s Fairfield County Junior Fair Queen competition, putting her on the doorstep of achieving a feat that she has dreamed of since childhood.
“When you’re eight years old and you see a big, flashy tiara it’s super encouraging and exciting,” said Makenna. “It’s something that I really wanted to do and interview for, for a really long time. So I was really excited when I was age-eligible to apply.”
The Junior Fair Queen competition is a tradition at the Fairfield County Fair that considers and evaluates candidates based on a variety of factors including 4 H and FFA (Future Farmers of America) activities, school and community events, and poise.
She has all of those and more.
Makenna is the president of her local 4-H club, Lithopolis Livestock, and serves as a camp counselor for the organization. She is a member and junior officer of the Eastland Career Center FFA club and serves on the school’s Recreation Committee. She is the vice president of publicity and finances on Fairfield County’s Junior Fair Board. At her home school, Canal Winchester High School, she plays the clarinet, is a section leader in the marching band, is a member of the swim team, and is a member of the American Sign Language Club. She also was a thrower on the CWHS track & field team for two years. She was also recently chosen as the 2024 Fairfield County Canine Ambassador.
Before pursuing tiaras, sashes, and impressive an resume, Makenna made a name for herself by raising and showing market chickens. Yes, these are chickens that will be grown to a certain quality and weight with the end goal of “re-homing” them before they find their way into your local grocery. She’s been in the chicken showing world since she joined her local 4-H club at eight years old. Now, she and her sister share 25 chickens that are bred for show and slaughter.
Before they are displayed in your grocer’s poultry section, she will select the best of the best of her flock to showcase at the Fairfield County Fair. She says that she must raise her chickens to be healthy, weigh between 12 and 23 pounds, possess high-quality meat, and share her knowledge on successfully raising chickens in order to score well with the judges. With a high placement, competitors go to what is called “the final drive”, where the best are crowned grand champion or reserve champion for their particular species.
Makenna and the nine other Junior Fair Queen finalists now wait for Panorama, a celebration of achievements that takes place to mark the fair’s official start. On Saturday, October 5, the 2024 Fairfield County Junior Fair Queen will be announced. Makenna shared that the person who is named Junior Fair Queen takes on a lot of responsibility, which includes traveling to other fairs to represent the county, competing at the upcoming Ohio Fair Queen contest, and (unofficially) serving as a role model for other young females and future competitors just as previous queens had done for her.
Whether she wins the crown or not, she is grateful for the experience.
“Even if I don’t end up getting crowned queen or one of the attendants, it was still a wonderful experience. I learned a lot more about filling out applications and the whole interview process. It was good practicing for interviewing … and I’m just really excited to get out there and show what I have to offer.”
She joked though that if she does win she will have to work on quick wardrobe changes during the fair.
“Even if I am chosen as [Junior] Fair Queen I will still do my show,” she said. “I will wear my crown and sash all day and then for my show I will have to take it off really quick, change into my show clothes, and go in to show my chickens, then put them back into their pen, make sure that they have food and water, and then change back into my queen stuff.”
Makenna will compete in showmanship events on Sunday, October 6, and then the following afternoon take part in the market show.
If you feel like you’ve heard a story like this before, you are not wrong. Last year, Eastland-Fairfield had two students from Fairfield Career Center named Fairfield County Junior Fair Queen finalists. The strength of Eastland-Fairfield’s FFA chapters has made lifting its students into the spotlight through the fair something of a habit, and a tradition that staff and students both hope becomes a tradition.
UPDATE: Our staff meet up with Makenna at the Fairfield County Fair and learned that she is officially Fair Royalty! Makenna was named Junior Fair Queen Second Attendant and will represent Fairfield County as such over the next year. Congratulations, Makenna!
