Royalty Round-Up

COLFAX — The 2015 Jasper County Fair queen and fair princess were crowned Saturday during the first Jasper County Fair Round-Up event in Colfax, and both of this year’s winners sport cardinal red.

Fair queen, 17-year-old Jaci Reeves, and princess, 18-year-old Tapanga Birkenholtz, are both of Newton. Reeves said her experience in FFA prepared her for the interview and presentation in front of the Jasper County Fair Board, but once she took the stage in the Jasper County Fair Grounds show ring pavilion, the butterflies returned.

“I liked that the board asked what’s great about Jasper County because we’re such a close-knit community. If someone’s in need we’re always willing to lend a hand,” Reeves said.

After receiving her crown, Birkenholtz said becoming the fair princess is like living this year’s county fair theme, “Blue Jeans and County Fair Dreams.”

“It feels phenomenal,” she said. “It’s like a dream come true — like the theme for this year’s county fair. We wore our bluejeans today and my county fair dreams came true.”

The Jasper County Fair Round-Up was the first official fair kick-off event, meant to preview the non-agricultural events, vendors and attractions the July 17-23 county fair has to offer.

Newton FFA and 4-H member Grace Dethrow, 16, has been embedded in the county fair since birth. Members of Dethrow’s family have show animals in past county fairs, and her mother is a former Iowa State Fair queen. She thinks the Round-Up was successful in advertising all the attributes the fair can offer attendees not involved in farming and livestock producing.

“I think it helps a lot of people to come out and see what the Jasper County Fair actually is. Kids can have fun, parents can have fun, it’s really for everybody,” Dethrow said.

Of course, that was the goal the fair board and Round-Up organizers had in mind when they decided to return to the historically traditional time to crown the Jasper County Fair queen. The event also allows the queen and princess to be involved in nearly every town parade and events throughout the year of their reign.

Rhonda Guy leads promotions for the Jasper County Fair. She said the Round-Up met the board’s goal of 500 attendees. Its success has solidified the Round-Up’s spot as the annual kickoff event. The tentative date for next year’s Round-Up is June 25, 2016. But Guy said the fair board is expected to officially schedule the 2016 kickoff during the group’s Monday meeting.

“That was the whole idea — promote the fair,” Guy said. “This is probably one of the easiest ways to do it. It’s a little more work. It’s a very concentrated time frame. We’re looking at a few new things to see if we can put them into the fair. But we’re doing a few things like the Oreo staking that the kids love and the Barn Yard Baby Review. It’s a little taste before fair time.”