Palmyra couple teaches kids about agriculture at Lenawee County Fair

ADRIAN — One of the main purposes of the Lenawee County Fair , and potentially most area fairs, is to provide guests with an environment that is exciting and fun, but also driven with an agricultural mindset.

Part of this agricultural education was on display and expanded during this year’s fair at the new Ag Education Tent.

Throughout Fair Week — July 21-27 — children of all ages and their families were able to take part in hands-on activities and interactive programming at the Ag Education Tent.

Today, The Daily Telegram is concluding its coverage and special stories from the 2024 fair.

Baby animals such as pigs, goats and lambs were inside the tent in which children and families could learn about the growing stages of the animals. There also was a farm-themed playground for little kids to play on. Daily educational programs were centered around agriculture, and perhaps the highlight of the Ag Education Tent was a play yard just for goats to frolic and play.

Each of these programs at the educational tent were made possible by hard-working volunteers, especially Palmyra couple Jerry and Tammy Pape.

This year’s version of the Ag Education Tent was an update of what has been used in past fairs, Jerry Pape said.

“In the past we have had baby animals, but this year I added the idea of the playground and the goat park that allows the goats from the goat barn to come over and exercise themselves. It’s been some good entertainment for the crowd, which has been a hit,” he said.

At the center of the playground and the entertainment provided by the goats is education.

“My goal was to get the kids to see ag in an educational way,” Pape said. “It’s an effort to get them to see what farming is really like.”

Families with younger children had high praise for the expansion of the Ag Education Tent, the Papes said. All day and all night of fair week the tent was full of kids and families, “which has made my heart extremely warm,” Jerry said.

“We’ve been here from sunup to sundown,” Tammy added the Friday night of Fair Week, July 26.

Not only were the baby animals an exciting aspect of the tent, but so too were the handful of live demonstrations including a sheep shearing demonstration, soap making from milk and a program about bees/honey.

“I hope to get even more (demonstrations) after this week,” Jerry said.

The Ag Education Tent will return to the 2025 Lenawee County Fair with even more additions added to it, the Papes said.

“I think we found our place,” Tammy said, adding some parents and their kids stayed inside the tent for more than two hours at a time. There were requests made for more seating areas for parents and potentially a nearby concession stand or two.

More: Dairy Arena at Lenawee County Fair kept busy with live animal shows, entertaining events

The ag tent also serves as a form of entertainment for the little kids who are too small to ride the carnival rides.

The Papes tried to bring in some of the things one would expect to see on a farm, such as a calf hutch, which is what’s used when calves are being raised. Corn boxes — like a sandbox — were full of corn kernels that were donated to the fair by Michigan Agricultural Commodities (MAC). The boxes of corn allowed children to shovel and collect the kernels, but also, they could mimic the operations of a grain elevator.

“There’s a bowl that’s right side up and it has a pipe that comes out the bottom, which matches one of the grain elevator legs. The kids put the corn in the top and it comes out the side,” Jerry described. “It’s fun to watch because (the kids) will fill up some (toy) trucks with (the corn). It’s showing them what it’s like working at the mill.”

Jerry and Tammy have three kids, now 30, 27 and 25, who were involved in 4-H their entire lives.

“We’ve been around this fair forever,” he said. “I’ve been around (the fair) since I was 4 and I’m 57. We’ve been around a long time.”

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Tammy said she was never a 4-H person until she married Jerry.

“She got thrown into it, and it’s in her blood now,” he said.

Tammy said she did her part in making the expansion of the Ag Education Tent possible, but a lot of the credit must go to her husband.

“He spent the whole winter, spring and half the summer making this happen,” she said of his efforts.

Down the road, it’s a goal/dream of the Papes to have a permanent educational barn at the fairgrounds in place of the tent. The goal, even then, will be for ag education.

“We need everybody to know where everything comes from,” Jerry said.

— Contact reporter Brad Heineman at bheineman@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: twitter.com/LenaweeHeineman .

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Palmyra couple teaches kids about agriculture at Lenawee County Fair