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Crawford County Dairy Banquet draws a crowd
CROP dairy royalty
CRAWFORD COUNTY DAIRY ROYALTY past and present, young and old, posed together at the end of the Dairy Banquet on Sunday, May 21. The group includes, front row from left, Rita Sime, 2017 Miss Squirt Attendant; Darci Jelinek, 2016 Lil Miss Squirt; and Grace Calla-han, 2017 Lil Miss Squirt; and in the back row from left, Brooklyn Nagel, 2016 Dairy Princess; Sara Kearns, 2017 Dairy Prin-cess; and Emily Steger, 2016 Dairy Princess At-tendant.

Strong support for the Dairy Industry brought out a ‘full house’ for the Crawford County Dairy Kick-Off Banquet last Sunday night at the Eastman United Methodist Fellowship Hall.

The event featured the crowing of Sarah Kearns as the 2017 Crawford County Dairy Princess. Sarah is the 17-year-old daughter of Tom and Beth Kearns. She grew up on her family’s 150-cow dairy farm near Seneca.

Sarah is homeschooled and will graduate this spring. She is involved in 4-H dairy judging, dairy and livestock quiz bowl team and is also a club officer. She is active in Junior Holstein and the Crawford County State Fair Dairy Team.

Sarah’s duties on the farm include calf barn manager, registering calves, keeping cow records and milking. Her favorite jobs are showing Holsteins and driving tractor. Sarah will serve as Crawford County’s 61st Dairy Princess.

The Crawford County Little Miss Squirt contest is in its 19th year.

The 2017 Crawford County Little Miss Squirt is Grace Callahan, the daughter of Josh and Carrie Callahan of Wauzeka. She is nine years old and a student at Wauzeka-Steuben School.

On her farm, Grace helps with maintaining the free stall barn, milking in the parlor, feeding calves and of course loving all the cats and dogs and her duck Mr. Quacks! As last year’s Little Miss Squirt Attendant she found out that she really likes to interact with people and tell them about our family farm. She has two older brothers, Jack and William.

The 2017 Little Miss Squirt Attendant is Rita Sime. Her parents are Chad and Sarah Sime. Rita lives on an 80-cow, 240-acre dairy farm near Mt Sterling, and has a big brother and two younger sisters.

Rita enjoys showing calves in the Farmer Bud Dairy Show at the Crawford County Fair, as well as showing off school projects.

On the farm, Rita helps her brother feed calves. She says the Brown Swiss are her favorite, just like her dad. She also takes care of many cats.

Rita is in Girl Scouts and TNT Gymnastics. Her favorite dairy food is strawberry ice cream!

The newly crowned dairy royalty's first public appearance will be greeting guests Saturday, June 3, 6 to 10 am. at the Crawford County Dairy Breakfast, hosted by the Steger Family Farm, located just off Highway 27, on Irish Ridge Road, north of Prairie du Chien.