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Contestants vie for VCYF Super Teen 2021
The preliminary round of the 17th annual Vernon County Youth Fair Super Teen Contest took place Monday night inside the Fairgrounds Show Pavilion, with four teams advancing to Tuesday’s finals for the chance to win prizes — most notably the coveted title of Super Teen 2021.
Much to the delight of family and friends in attendance, 40 area teenagers comprised 10 teams that competed in various individual and paired events, as well as a four-person land ski competition to cap off the night, in hopes of tabulating enough points to move on to the next day’s obstacle course.
The top four teams that advanced included: Josie Banes, Haley Byram, Kaiden Byram, and Judd Loyd of Team 2; Taylynn Culbertson, Ethan Forkner, Brock Morrison, and Jacie Starlin of Team 3; Cole Burch, Lukas Higgins, Allison Olson, and Kayley Olson of Team 7; and Gretchen Banes, Bailey Cliffman, Logyn Rainey, and Tanner Wait of Team 10.
The event kicked off with the hay toss for height, in which each boy had two attempts to successfully throw a bale of hay over a bar that volunteers raised 6-12 inches after each round. Skylur Mashek of Team 8 ended up winning the individual competition, clearing 11 feet, 8 inches, with Wait finishing second at 11 feet, 6 inches. Higgins rounded out the top three with a height of 10 feet, 10 inches.
Next up was the hay toss for distance, which entailed volunteers measuring how far each individual boy and girl could hurl a bale of hay, with some of the boys making it all the way to the fence on the other side of the pavilion. Rainey scored the longest toss out of the boys at 39 feet, 2 inches, with Forkner taking second (38 feet, 4 inches) and Loyd placing third (38 feet, 2 inches). On the girls’ side, Natalie Peery won with a distance of 34 feet, Cliffman was second (33 feet, 4 inches), and Caiden Blake was third (30 feet).
The final individual event was hay stacking, in which each girl had to carry six bales of hay from one side to the other and bundle them on top of each other, with the fastest time earning the most points. Gretchen Banes earned 15 as the only competitor to finish in under one minute, with a first-place time of 50.10 seconds. Addison Dilly placed second (1:04.42), and Josie Banes finished not far behind in third (1:04.78).
There were six pair events after that, with each team of four splitting up into mini-teams of two.
The duo of Culbertson and Morrison won the gunny sack race (12.35 seconds), with Colter Banes and Mackensi Shipley taking second (13.10) and Loyd and Josie Banes earning third (13.20).
In arguably the toughest (or at least the longest) event of the night, the needle in the haystack, Preslee Bower and Kayd Pettit beat the competition with a time of 1 minute, 48 seconds. Luke Anderson and Caiden Blake were next fastest (3:32.24), barely edging out Hadley Gordon and Kenneth Johnson (3:32.88).
In cattle calling: Wait and Gretchen Banes won first (1:49), Loyd and Josie Banes were second (1:58), and Culbertson and Morrison were third (2:13).
In the two-man saw, yet another physically taxing competition, the pair of Higgins and Allison Olson cut through their portion of a log in 1 minute, 49 seconds, beating second-place finishers Haley Byram and Kaiden Byram (2:25) and, in third place, Forkner and Starlin (2:31).
Culbertson and Morrison picked up another win in the corn shelling, using their bare hands to pick the most kernels off the cob in the designated time (4.05 ounces). Loyd and Josie Banes were runners-up (4.00), while Shipley and Colter Banes finished third (3.84).
In the stilts races, Bower and Pettit took first with a time of 37.20 seconds, Higgins and Allison Olson placed second (40.50), and Dilly and Strauss Banes were third (52.43).
The final event required the participation of all four team members: land skis. With one member facing forward and the other three facing the opposite direction, teams raced each other from one end of the Pavilion to the other while walking (or attempting to walk) on two roped boards. The event was also to be part of the obstacle course on Tuesday, which bodes well for winning team 7 (Burch, Higgins, Allison Olson, and Kailey Olson), which shot across the finish line in 20.11 seconds. Team 5 (Bower, Pettit, Lailee Chadd, and Wade Hartman) finished second (24.85). Team 10 (Cliffman, Rainey, Wait, and Gretchen Banes) rounded out the top three (24.80).