Alyssa Brandner, Jacob Eckert have strong showing at state fair

Two Taylor County 4-H members wrapped up their junior fair careers with success at the Wisconsin State Fair last week.

Alyssa Brandner and Jacob Eckert are members of Countrysiders 4-H and both have been showing livestock since they were in 3rd grade, so 11 years.

Both wrapped up their junior fair careers and sold their last steers at Taylor County Fair this year. “Ending it at the Wisconsin State Fair was a pretty nice way to go out,” said Karyn Eckert, Jacob’s mother.

Alyssa of Medford attended this year’s Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee last week. Her steer won the Bred & Owned Champion Title.

He also won his class and was the 3rd overall Hereford Steer in the State. Alyssa’s steer was born on the family’s farm from a cow that she owned and raised. She has competed with him around Wisconsin and Minnesota for the past 9 months.

Jacob raised a pair of market lambs each of the 11 years of showing 4-H livestock, 22 lambs total. He had grand champion market lamb at the Taylor County Fair seven of those years and was reserve three times. The lambs he’s raised were all Hampshire or Hampshire cross wethers. Jacob also raised steers for the county fair the past two years. This year he had Reserve Grand Champion Market Steer with his Maine-Anjou steer.

Jacob planned to take lambs for state fair in 2020, which was canceled due to Covid. He got busy with baseball and high school, but they finally made it there in 2023. He enjoyed it a lot and decided he wanted to go again even though he was in college.

His Hampshire lamb weighed 107 pounds and his crossbred lamb weighed 127 pounds. The Hampshire lamb was a little sick right after the Taylor County Fair or he would have been closer to his target weight. The Wisconsin State Fair has two shows for junior market exhibitors. One is a traditional market class divided by breed and the other is a performance class, which combines a live show divided by weight and carcass evaluation. Classes have about a dozen lambs each and exhibitors are from all over Wisconsin.

Jacob’s Hampshire lamb was 5th in his market division class and 3rd in the performance class. His crossbred lamb was 6th in his performance class and 9th in his market class.

Jacob is going to be a sophomore this fall at UW-River Falls studying Agricultural Engineering - Machinery Systems.