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<< Previous   of   Next >> (click to enlarge) Kirsten Schmuck, 18, of Lake Stevens cradles the head of Valerie before showing the calf Thursday at the fair. Mark Mulligan / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Henry Wright and his 2 year-old son, Cameron, gaze up at one of the roller coasters at the Evergreen State Fair on Thursday in Monroe. Cameron may have to wait a few more years before he's ready to take on the ride.   ADVERTISEMENT   Related Stories • Audio slideshow: 100 Years at The Evergreen State Fair 8/22/08 • Behind the scenes at the fair 8/22/08 • Fair Best Bets 8/22/08 • Fair results 8/22/08   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, August 22, 2008 State fair opens with style in Monroe MONROE -- It was Valerie's big day. Her debut. It was a coming-out party for an awkward teen who only needed a nudge from a few stylists to transform into a graceful show-stopper. Valerie is a 6-month-old Holstein. She's been fed and housed in a local barn, but she's never had her hair cut, her tail fluffed or her hooves polished. Her stylists are four agriculture students who volunteered to scramble beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday to spiff Valerie up enough to compete against seven other calves at a 1:30 p.m. judged exhibition. The Start to Finish competition at the Evergreen State Fair pits teams of three or four students, a combination of elementary, middle and high school students, against each other to bathe, shave and groom calves who have never before been handled for so long by humans. The competition teaches students to work quickly together and gain control over the unruly creatures, said Ned Zaugg, a dairy specialist at Washington State University who judged Thursday's event. It also offers an important service to farmers who donate the calves to be used in the competition. "When the cows get to be 1,500 pounds, they are almost impossible to control if they've never been handled," he said. "They need to learn how to trust humans that we're not out to hurt them." Agriculture competitions were in full swing Thursday, the first day of the 12-day fair, even as rain pounded the midway and sent small groups of fair revelers running for cover. Fair officials weren't able to estimate the number of visitors Thursday. Exact attendance numbers aren't expected to be released until several weeks after the fair ends its centennial run. Valerie arrived Thursday morning with a coat of matted hair and cow dung on her legs, said Kelsey Beebe, 10, of Monroe. "She was dirty and really hard to wash, but now she's really cute," said Loryn Casey, 9, of Monroe, who participated in the competition for the first time on Thursday. "She's one of the cutest cows I've ever seen, and I've seen like five cows." Casey and Kelsey hopped around Valerie, blasting the Holstein's black-and-white coat with a hair dryer and then special animal hair spray to smooth it and make it shiny. Christina Clemens, 17, of Everett, and Kirsten Schmuck, 18, of Lake Stevens, knelt down to shave Valerie's back legs, where they were in danger of being kicked by the frustrated calf. They all took turns using moist baby wipes to clean Valerie's nose and ears. "You never know where the judge will look," Schmuck said. By 1 p.m., the group was scrambling to change out of their rubber work boots and mud-splattered pants into fresh jeans and sneakers. At 1:30 p.m., they dragged Valerie to the livestock stadium. And waited. Zaugg spent more than an hour making his decision. Each team member for all eight calves in the competition had a chance to pull his or her resistant charge around the stadium. Valerie lost. Maybe it was because she mooed stubbornly when Zaugg was looking, or because she jerked her head to the side when she should have been walking forward. Maybe it was because she kicked too much for Clemens to cleanly shave the back of her feet. Beebe's not sure if she'll return to the Start to Finish competition next year. She recently bought a dog, Gracie. It's a cocker spaniel, border collie mix, along with another breed, of which Beebe isn't sure. Next year, Gracie will take her turn around the dog-show stadium. "I think I'll like that better," Beebe said. "I can tell her to sit." Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.

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