Community Center filled with open class entries for fair

The Great Northern Fairgrounds Community Center once again is filled with open class entries people submitted for viewing and judging at the 2019 Great Northern Fair.

Every year, the fair hosts open class competition where Hill County residents are able to enter anything from culinary arts to home arts, arts andcrafts, floral, sewing items, and so on, to be judged by people who have experience in each field.

Open Class is open to Hill County residents who are in pre-school through seniors — with no upper age limit. The event breaks competition up between the children’s and adults’ entries so children don’t compete against adults.

Open Class participant Shelma Seidel said she has been involved in open class competition since she was a child.

“For the last numerous years I make cakes, an angle food cake and a sponge cake,” she added.

Seidel said she has participated in open class for almost 50 years. She started in 4-H when she was 9 and participated 10 years, and competing in both open class 4-H exhibits. She and her mother, Alma Seidel, a long-time 4-H leader and former member of the Great Northern Fair Board, would come up to the fairgrounds all the time to help and to bake for the events.

In her open class entries, Seidel said, she has mainly stuck to entering baked goods though some years she has entered sewing pieces. When she was a child, she said, she had grains and crops that she presented.

During her years participating in 4-H, she showed livestock, including sheep and beef, and her brother had a pig and a dairy cow.

“We kind of had a gamut,” Seidel said.

A memorial museum dedicated to Alma Seidel is in the 4-H area, to honor her dedication, organizing and helping with 4-H and the fair every year.

Shelma Seidel said that her mother served 50 years as a 4-H leader before she died.

“I’ve been involved in either 4-H or open class since I was 9,” Seidel said. “Though I would have to say, the beef show is my favorite.”

This year she helped with the flowers, baked goods. She said she just got a jelly machine, so she learned how to make peach and wild plum jams.

“People just amaze me, that are so young and so talented or that are so old and have so many talents that I’ll never be able to catch up to them,” Seidel said. “We even do have some exhibits from the Hutterite colonies. It’s only been a couple years since they started bringing stuff in, so that’s good, because they are crafty people and so talented.”