Quintet of royalty contestants showcase a tight-knit group

It may sound a bit odd when young people running for a prestigious queen and king role root for one another, but for the five teens contesting for the right to represent their county and fair during the king and queen contest at this year’s Holmes County Junior Fair, that proved to be the case.

The quintet of newly elected Queen Madison Ringwalt and King Logan Van Dalen along with court members Cassidy Holasek, Miles Mallasch and Tristan Houin are all seniors at West Holmes. All are involved in 4-H and FFA, and all of them have grown very close over the past years.

Holasek ran for queen hoping to push herself into a somewhat uncomfortable place, one that forced her to get out there in front of the public doing something she hadn’t done before.

She summed up the contest aura. “These are some of my best friends. This is a great opportunity for all of us to try and to come out and have fun with it,” she said.

Ringwalt agreed, and while she was excited about winning and serious about the upcoming year, she said getting to go through the process with her friends made it easier and more gratifying, knowing whoever came out on top would do a great job.

She said traveling together to various fairs and festivals in the coming year should be fun as they experience the adventure together.

Having a passion for showing market hogs the past nine years in 4-H, Ringwalt, who also is the West Holmes FFA president, said the opportunity to learn and grow through the 4-H experience has been a great one.

Van Dalen may not have grown up on the farm and in FFA, but he has made up for it quickly, having joined FFA as a freshman. Since then he has poured himself into many aspects of it and has learned a great deal from his friends, who have accepted him and helped him learn the ropes.

Mallasch, who like Ringwalt has been raising hogs for the past nine years and showing them in the junior livestock show, has the rare honor of at one point showing a donkey at the fair.

He said coming up through 4-H and FFA with this group has been a blessing because they were able to learn many important character-building traits through 4-H and FFA.

“You learn something new every year,” Mallasch said. “It teaches you a lot of responsibility and respect. It’s done a lot for me.”

As they prepare for their final year at West Holmes High School, Mallasch said he is excited about creating more memories with his friends.

Houin, who also is big into the rodeo scene and has attended national events, said it's neat to be involved with a competition where everyone is friends.

“We all know each other, we all work together on projects in school and we’ve all been in classrooms together,” Houin said. “I feel like we will be able to work a lot better together than would other people who would not have had this same situation.”

One thing is almost a certainty: Getting to experience this contest together with friends made it a much more memorable moment for all five of the contestants.