Remember when? for Wednesday, August 12, 2026

The following piece was published in the Daily Press on Aug. 17, 1978.

ESCANABA -- With approximately 270 dairy cows entered, the competition at the Upper Peninsula State Fair in Escanaba featured more than 40 animals than last year, Hugo Kivi, dairy superintendent, reported.

Kivi, a veteran of many fairs, said the competition for the grand championship honors in the Jersey, Guernsey, Holstein and Brown Swiss divisions was high in both numbers and quality.

"The quality is great this year, he commented as he walked through one of the dairy barns. ''Even the judges say there’s high quality this year.”

Although the number of cows this year is up from last year's fair, there isn’t as many as there were a fewyears ago.

''We used to have about 600 cows entered, Kivi noted.''It’s getting more difficult for the farmers now to leave part of their herd at home and bring others here.'

"The big thing is they’re still here competing with the others to find out who has the best animals. As far as quality goes, though, it's as high as we ve ever had.” he said.

The dairy cow competition is broken into four breed divisions, Jersey, Guernsey, Holstein and Brown Swiss. Kivi said the Holstein is the breed most represented at the fair while the Jersey is second in popularity with the exhibitors.

Taking grand champion bull honors in the Guernsey breed was an animal owned by Teresa Trudell of Natural Mine. Her bull also took semor champion honors.

The grand champion female Guernsey title went to a cow owned by Mary Trudell., Teresa’s sister. Her cow also won junior and senior championship titles.