You can forgive Harper Gabbert if she’s a bit more cautious than most 4-H’ers her age when she talks about her Allen County Fair entries.
It was a year ago that Gabbert, then 7, was less than two weeks away from entering a laundry list of projects for her first ever Fair, when disaster struck.
Her prized pig, one she’d been raising for several months, suddenly stopped eating.
Harper, her older brother Henry and their parents, Darrell and Jacque Gabbert, reached out to a local veterinarian, who suggested stress may have been the reason.
“We went to town to get some medicine for it,” Harper recalled.
But by the time they returned to their home south of Moran, the pig had died.
“That was pretty tough,” she admitted.
“By the time they’ve gotten to that point, 4-H animals are usually pretty sturdy,” mother Jacque said. “But you just don’t know.”
A postpartum examination left the vet fairly certain a birth defect, described as a “stress gene,” caused the sudden loss of appetite, which when coupled with high body temperatures, quickly became fatal.
Upset, but not undaunted, young Harper quickly regrouped, and brought home a number of top prizes, including a clothing construction grand championship and purple ribbons for her arts and crafts and poultry showmanship. Oh, and she won the pedal pull for her age group.
Fast forward 12 months, and the Gabberts have another busy week scheduled for the Fair, which opens Tuesday.
Older brother Henry, 10, hopes to add to his purple ribbon haul with a pig, sheep, robotics, forestry and wildlife project and a shooting sports poster.
Harper, now 8, also will enter a pig and sheep, to go along with her arts and craft projects, a Lego display, and a homemade skirt for the Style Revue.
The siblings spoke about their work, which has been ongoing pretty much since last September, but hit high gear in recent weeks.
A RARE find last fall became one of Henry’s 2026 entries.
It was last September when Henry was watering the family’s pet cats when he inadvertently kicked a small skull that had made its way to the farmyard.
