A2o—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 19,1983 Four By Robin Phillips LEESPORT - It all began nearly a year ago in March, 1982 during the Berks County 4-H Dairy Banquet. The featured event for the evening was a Dairy Bowl contest between the county 4-H -dairy clubs. The fact that the Northern Berks Club won the competition that evening was significant, but even more important was the idea bom in the minds of four other contestants. They decided that this was something in which they would like to excell. The four teens - Carol Dreisbach, R 3 Hamburg; Constance Ohlinger, R 1 Mohrsville, both from the Northern Berks 4-H Dairy Club; William Lasher, R 1 Bemville, from the Western Berks 4-H Dairy Club, and Scott Troutman, R 1 Myerstown, from the Stroudsburg 4-H Dairy Club, set a collective goal to compete for a place on the Berks County Dairy Bowl team. After attaining this initial goal, it has been one acheivement after another for the four youths. In Dairy Bowl contests, questions are asked individually and to the team as a whole. Sub jects covered include feeds and feeding, milk quality, herd health, udder health, breeding and genetics, marketing, dairy foods, calf raising and all breeds of dairy cattle. Points are given for correct answers and high scoring team wins. The questions are tough, the competition is fierce, the knowledge gained is extensive, but the most rewarding is the team As team prepares for competition at State Holstein Convention at Erie next week, coach Kenneth Fabian adds his support and guidance. By Beth Hemminger Staff Correspondent MECHANICABURG - The Cumberland County 4-H Baby Beef Club closed its 1982 activities year with a fanfare of awards and recognition to members for a year of work well done. After a roast beef meal, the awards were presented to the champions of the showring. Receiving an engraved silver plate for the Cumberland County Grand Champion Steer was Angie Fought. She went on to receive another award for her efforts in the showmanship competition, cap turing the Senior Champion Showman Award. Allyson Sheaffer received a silver plate for her Cumberland County Reserve Champion Steer. She also received the Brmdle Memorial Award for the animal with the most gain during the 4-H year. Her steer had and average daily weight gain of 2.65 pounds. Berks 4-H’ers set goal & then go for comraderie that develops the team spirit and fellowship displayed by these four youths of the Berks County Dairy Bowl team is a shining example of what 4-H is all about. To their credit to date, the Berks County team placed first at the Regional 4-H competition in July, placed first at the State 4-H competition at the 4-H Acheivement Days at Penn Stater in August, and placed second at the National Dairy Quiz Bowl com petition in Louisville, Ky. in November. Now, it is on to the Pennsylvania Holstein Convention in Erie, where they will be competing in the Pennsylvania Junior Holstein Association Dairy Quiz Bowl against teams from across the state. These past winter nights have found these teammates sharpening their skills as they prepare themselves for new competition. Although all team members have past championships in showmanship and fitting to their credit, and each one is quite ac customed to the daily chores on their parents farms, they rely on two thick notebooks of typed questions and answers put together by team captain, Connie Ohlinger, for their technical in formation. Acknowledging that their best source of questions has been Carl Brown, of F.M. Browns Sons, Inc. Feeds, Sinking Spring. Connie has also collected questions from previous contests. All team members try to read Hoard’s Cumberland honors 4-H baby beef champs Denise Baker’s steer was runner up for the award with an average daily amount of 2.48 pounds. Keith Baker was presented an engraved plate for his efforts in winning the Junior Champion Showmanship award at the roundup. Winning the In termediate Champion Showmanship award was Karen Fought. Winning the Senator Wade Plaque in the county was Steve Otto. The Senator Wade Plaque is presented to a 4-H member who has shown throughout his 4-H career the qualities of leadership, intergrity and citizenship. Steve received this award because of his outstanding dedication to the overall 4-H program in Cum berland County. The 57th Annual 4-H Baby Beef Banquet is sponsored by The Mechanicsburg Area Chamber of Commerce. Dairy bowl team heads for Erie Berks County Dairy Bowl team, hard at work studying notebooks filled with questions and answers, include, from the left, Carol Dreisbach, William testier, Scott Troutman, and Connie Oh linger. Dairyman magazine as often as possible. “It takes a lot of studying,” Connie admits. When the team has been stumped by a question, they have also relied upon Dr. George Merrill, of Willow Creek Animal Hospital, R 1 Leesport, to answer the question or to prepare them for “really hard question”, Connie explains. Admitting that the least liked part of the competition is the in dividual questions, the team agreed that their favorite subjects Cumberland County baby beef winners, in. -om /son -r, reserve grand champion and Brindle Memorial Award; Karen Fought, intermediate champion showperson; Angie Fought, grand champion, senior showing championship; and Keith Baker, junior champion showman. are health and breed questions. Crops and feeds are areas which William and Scott specialize in; with milking procedures, management, and breed questions being the favorites of Connie and Carol. If a teammate does not know the answer to an individual question, they will usually try to give a good guess. “Sometimes if you’re close (to the answer), they’ll give it to you,” Scott explains. If nothing comes to mind, “you try to look like you’re thinking of something intelligent,” Carol adds. All agreed that the easiest part of the competition is the team questions when the team gets to confer on the answer and the team captain is responsible to give the answer within the alloted time. Although the rest of the team agreed that “she is good at bailing us out when we are behind,” Connie says that it gets difficult, “if the team doesn’t give me an swers and I have to dream something up.” Concluding that her favorite questions are the toss ups, Connie said, “everybody might know the answers, but then it comes down to whoever has the faster fingers on the buzzers.” The coaches for this outstanding team are Kenneth Fabian, R 1 Bemville, and Helen Seidel, Berks County Dairy Princess. Although admitting to “threatening them at regionals” and “bribing them at States”, Fabian remembers back to March at the banquet when Connie came up to him and told K <•> - f~ /* > ~ ■* 3» v * ,*<* ,-< , « < -6^ it Y»»v ' him that this year (1982) the team was going to win and they were going to go to the Nationals in Kentucky. At one practice for their in terview the youths seemed to know what page of questions their coach was reading and answered before the question was finished most of the time. “See, I don’t have to read the questions, they' know what I’m going to read,” Fabian said. If the Berks County team is successful in Erie next week, it is on to the Nationals in Virginia in June and more stiff competition. - What will be next for these youth with a combined total of 32 years of 4-H between them? Stating that she was first in terested in Dairy Bowl because she wanted to learn more about cows, Carol plans to help coach 1983’s dairy bowl team. Since the rules require that once a team wins on the state level, it must retire and cannot compete in the same contest again, other team mem bers, Scott, William and Connie, also plan to assist the upcoming team to repeat the honors. But, lode out all dairy judging teams. All four of these juniors plan to upstage the current Berks County Dairy Judging team, which placed second at states (and eligible to try-out again) and repeat their victories in Dairy Cattle Judging Competitions. With the team spirit sportsmanship that these youths display, Berks County will be well represented in any future competition. ! ■' <fS, , i K* v r I - & t 1
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