Extension in your Community

The Olmsted County fair board has made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 Olmsted County Fair due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 4-H is committed to offering an alternative for Olmsted County youth to showcase their learning and achievements. We will update as decisions are made. 

Welcome to our page dedicated to all Olmsted County Fair Information! This page will be updated with information that is included in emails, Facebook posts, snail mail, etc. If you have information you would like to see added to this page, let us know! You can quickly access this site by going to: z.umn.edu/AllAboutFair

We have developed a lot of new documents and guides this year. If a document has a “Last updated on___” at the top, it is a working document and we plan to add to it throughout this winter/spring. If you have suggestions on information to add to these resources, let us know.

Opportunities to Get Involved

We have two youth and adult opportunities for you to get involved in the animal science program. For full role descriptions, see attachments.

Animal Science Project Development Committee - Youth & Adult Program Development Committee meets three to four times each year as well as fill the superintendent role for the county fair. PDC members will assist in communication with project members and recruiting and supporting additional volunteers to support county fair and any additional educational opportunities. If you are interested in filling this role (similar to what was previously our “superintendent” role), we encourage you to review the attached role description and complete this quick application: z.umn.edu/AnimalSciencePDC. See full role description in downloads.

Blue Ribbon Auction Committee - Committee members will meet 3-4 times and assist with the auction (Thursday night of fair). Youth and adult positions are available for multiple species, contact Kristina (abba0048@umn.edu) if you are interested. See full role description in downloads.

Static Project Superintendents - 

Cloverbuds

County Fair registration for cloverbuds is a multi-step process with some slight variations (and new vocabulary). 

Step 1 - Animal Identification - Cloverbuds can either show their own animal, a sibling’s, or one owned by another 4-H’er. Regardless, we ask that they complete both steps of the registration process to prevent any mix-ups on show day. For non-Cloverbuds, animals are ID’d in 4HOnline, while we have a paper form for Cloverbuds to fill out. (See downloads section). If your animal requires an ear tag (view all animal id requirements here), you can pick them up at the 4-H Office and thanks to our Blue Ribbon Auction Fundraiser, they are at no cost to our families.  

Step 2 - Fair Registration - Fair Registration is completed online on the FairEntry website (link will be posted 5/16). This is where 4-H’ers register for specific classes in both livestock and non-livestock categories (we refer to these as “Static projects”). You will notice that there are a condensed number of choices for Cloverbuds. For example, there is only one Cloverbud beef class and Cloverbud Static projects are all judged in one category (not separated by photography/crafts/fishing/etc.). Projects need to be registered by the June 15th deadline. 

We know this can be a confusing process, so please feel free to reach out to 4-H staff or your fellow 4-H’ers. We will also be hosting some drop-in nights at the Extension Office for interested families to walk through the process with extra volunteers, staff, and extended hours. Check the “upcoming events” section for full details.

Animal ID

Extended deadline: Our animal identification system will remain in place. The deadline is extended to June 1, 2020.

At this time, our office is closed and we cannot distribute tags until after the face to face contact restrictions are lifted (May 15). If you need tags, please fill out this Tag Request Form [z.umn.edu/OlmstedEarTags] and we will have your order ready when we reopen.

Families must place tags in animal ears and record identification data in 4HOnline by June 1. Any unused tags must be returned to our office by June 15.

Please note, our June 15 Project Registration (FairEntry) deadline will not be changing. However, the FairEntry site will not open until June 2nd, an email will be sent when this goes live.

Eartags

For full information visit: 2020 Eartag Information Sheet

A couple of reminders:

• When tagging animals make sure you are using a ytex tagger
• For swine, sheep/goats - both parts of the tag must have matching numbers
• Valid in 2020 are white tags for all species except swine and yellow tags

Late Deadlines, Consequences, Exemption Policy 

Note: The following can be found on the MN 4-H website under “Understanding 4-H Policies”

Because life sometimes gets in the way of a member or an entire family submitting paperwork by the deadline, Minnesota 4-H has a "member exemption rule." Every 4-H member has a one-time forgiveness exemption during their 4-H career for missing a deadline for enrollment or competitive event participation. In this case, Minnesota 4-H will waive the consequences for that missed deadline.

• The exemption is one-time per 4-H member.
• The exemption may be used only one time in a 4-H member's career.
• If a family misses a deadline for all eligible children, the family may choose to use the exemption for each child, or they may select which children would use their exemption at this time. This allows families to have choice in whether to use the exemption for a child now or to save the exemption for a potential future situation.

The competitive events, deadlines, consequences and exemption options table outlines the state and county individual competitive 4-H event deadlines, consequences applied to each situation/deadline, and the use of the one-time exemption to remove all consequences for a single situation/deadline.

Youth who wish to claim the "one-time" exemption should get the appropriate form from the Extension Office in the county/tribal nation of membership. The timeline for filing of the exemption form is in the competitive events, deadlines, consequences and exemption options table.