Charlie Sommers walks his lamb over to the washing station at the Cache County Fair on Wed. August 6, 2023.
LOGAN – The next couple of days there will be hundreds of young people running around the Cache County Fair Grounds for the annual county fair. A number of those youth, about 450 of them, will be members of Cache County 4-H.
Some will be showing their crafts, some their art and others things they made.
A lion share of the youth at the fair, however, will be showing livestock: sheep, pigs, cows, goats of various kinds.
For kids showing animals there is a super supporter of the Cache County Fair who they hope will take notice.
Dr. Russell Guymon is a generous supporter of the Cache County Fair. He and his staff generally hand out over 200 4-H T-shirts and boost some youth with their projects and spends $5,000 buying livestock.
The Mountain Crest and Utah State graduate’s children currently participate in 4-H and so did his wife Katrina when she was younger. At the auction at the end, Guymon is a big supporter of the Cache County Fair and 4-H kids.
“For the past several years Guymon has sponsored a standard boost for anyone in the community if they visit his office,” said Erin Pardo, his office manager. “They don’t have to be a patient of his.”
He also gives a grand boost of $150 to two random people. A drawing determines the two winners.
“Last year Erin Atkinson won the $150 boost for her cow and so did siblings Wayne and June Hymas for their goats,” Pardo said. “This year Guymon Orthodontics purchased some 205 shirts for 4-H’ers.”
This year they will do the same. His office staff helps by coming up with a theme and designs for the T-shirts. Fair folks don’t have to look far to find a kid wearing a green T-shirt with white lettering on the fair grounds.
“We’ve given away over 100 shirts to 4-H kids for years; each year we have different design,” she said. “They have been doing it for a long time.”
This year they doubled the number of T-shirts they made and this year’s theme is “We’ve been tagging before tagging was cool #FarmLife.”
“The whole office gets involved,” she said. “We wander the fairgrounds during the fair and give out $5 gift card to kids wearing the T-shirts.”
The T-shirt idea came because his kids wore a T-shirt to protect their white shirt to show their animals. The T-shirt kept them from getting soiled before they showed their animals.
Each year the Cache County Fair helps young people learn a lot from raising market animals to be judged by area professionals. By raising animals, participants learn essential life skills like responsibility, compassion, and the humane treatment of animals.
They also learn cooperation, leadership and community service through participation in 4-H clubs or FFA Chapters.