The rope halter hugged around a wet nose and slipped over a pair of fuzzy black ears, flicking back and forth between sounds and pesky flies. I tried my best to keep my hands steady. Cows, like most animals, I’m convinced, sense your fear. So do dads, and mine was watching closely from outside the gate. I wanted to impress him. At 11 years old, this was my first time haltering a heifer by myself, and she was officially “my heifer,” even though I felt about as in command over her as I did my shaking hands.
My dad had let me pick her out from the herd in October at the end of grazing season, before the rest of the 7-month-olds were weaned, loaded up and sent to sales and finishing lots. I’d scanned the leggy, goofy calves — some bald-faced and skittish, some butterscotch-colored from their mixed Limousin-breed background — before he pointed right at her. She came from a good Black Angus cow and a registered Black Angus bull, he told me, introducing me to the idea of cattle pedigree. She’d probably grow to be a good cow, too. I followed his lead. The most thought I’d given to a calf before that was 1) they were cute, and 2) I couldn’t get too attached, because they got sold every fall for meat production — simple as that. Now it was time to start my more formal education.
I’d joined a local 4-H club because I had a lot to learn about the family business: farming. I also wanted to have an excuse to hang out with my sixth grade crush, who happened to show cattle every year at the county fair 4-H competitions.
When I asked my parents if I could join 4-H, I think something inside of them lit up. It was an opportunity for values they taught me — like hard work, honesty, neighborly love, community service and the importance of showing up — to come from other adults I could look up to, outside the dinner table or Sunday school. I think something inside of them also fretted. There was already dance practice, basketball, music club, travel softball, horses and dogs and chores — was there really time to feed and primp and train a cow to walk around an arena on a hot July day in hopes of what … that I’d win a ribbon?
They told me this heifer was my responsibility. And if I wanted to show her at the fair, then I had to do the work. I agreed.
Around six million young people are involved in the 4-H Youth Development Program in the United States, making it one of the nation’s largest youth organizations. Programs range from STEM to agriculture. It’s volunteer-led, and youth can join clubs for welding, gardening or — in my case — livestock. These clubs meet year-round, with the calendar culminating in one big moment: the county fair. It was there that you could show up and show off what you’d been working on for months.
For generations, “showing” at the fair has served as a means to come together as a community and celebrate. To dress up in starched jeans and pressed shirts and bring a piece of family-run farms into town. To hold tight that ineffable piece of rural Americana and its memory, whether it actually ever existed or not. If it did, I swear it smelled like sawdust and funnel cakes.
Holding on to tradition
These days, there are only around 1,600 officially named “county fairs” held annually in the U.S. For comparison, there are about 3,000 counties in the country.
Rooted in agricultural history, youth education and cultural celebration, the county fair’s ability to evolve isn’t as powerful as its capacity to preserve tradition, which is part of what keeps it relevant and beloved across the country today. In Utah, an estimated 45,000 attended the Utah County Fair this year — nearly double the average population of towns considered “rural” in America, which around 20 percent of the nation’s population call home. In August, photographer Tess Cowley attended the four-day fair, documenting the most modern version of old customs. And to be honest, it doesn’t look much different than how I remember it looking 20 years ago. Kids in collared shirts and ponytails, aluminum grandstands swept and shining, bugs swarming arena lights.
My first year of showing, between October and July, I washed and brushed my heifer every other week. I went to the feed store in the winter with my dad, half-dragging 50-pound bags of grain corn to the truck. I hoped and prayed that she’d grow big and strong, with straight pasterns on her legs and a wide chest, just like the diagrams for “winning conformation” showed. We practiced walking around the barn lot, turning circles for hours. On the day of the show, I polished her hooves and tried to walk with a straight back and confidence. Somehow, we came away with third place. My dad was right, she was a good cow.
This story appears in the September 2025 issue of DeseretMagazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.