4-H girls hard work earns Lea County Fair sweepstakes buckles
Denise Marquez/News-Sun
LOVINGTON — Eager youth and parents crowded around covered showcases Monday at the Lea County Fairgrounds, waiting to see who would take home this year’s sweepstakes titles.
The Lea County Fair and Rodeo 4-H Sweepstakes is a multi-project competition for 4-H members covering projects in home economics and handicrafts, divided into novice, junior and senior age divisions. At 6 p.m. in the Yucca Building, five girls were named as 4-H sweepstakes winners as their projects were unveiled to their family and friends.
Carley Davis won novice home economics sweepstakes; Daisy Pfalzgraf won junior home economics; Isabella Pierce, won senior home economics. Kimber Abernathy, won novice handicraft sweepstakes and Faith Carter won senior handicraft sweepstakes for the second year in a row.
Pierce said she entered a total of 35 projects, spending most of the summer preparing for the fair.
“I did a variety of things,” she said. “I did two quilts and they got grand (prize). I did a lot of canning and I did three pies; and then I just did a lot of sewing. I like doing outfits. I like cutting out the patterns and seeing how it all comes together once I’m done. I like picking out the fabric.
“During the summer I would have to work every single day,” Pierce continued. “I would have to wake up in the morning and work my sheep and then go straight to sewing, every single day.”
Pierce said her hard work was worth it by earning her first buckle as the senior home economics sweepstakes winner. She will also be showing three sheep on Wednesday during the market lamb show.
“It feels really good because this will be my first buckle from the fair,” she said. “I’m very excited.”
Carter also entered 35 project this year, focusing on welding and woodwork.
“I did a bunch of welding and woodworking,” she said. “I did a variety of different things than I did last year so I could kind of learn a bunch of things. In my woodworking project, I did a vanity as my self-determined project and I wanted to do that because I wanted to do something that I could actually keep and use after.”
Carter said she sacrificed much of her summer vacation to work on her projects, along with working with the five lambs and seven rabbits she plans to show this year.
“It was a lot of work. I kind of had to sacrifice a bunch of other things just so I could focus on them and get them done in time,” she said. “It’s definitely rewarding that I didn’t do all that work for nothing. I’m glad I could win it twice.”
