One minute, Josie Holtz was handing out ribbons to animal show exhibitors at the Oconto County Youth Fair.
The next minute, she was brushing Floppy, one of her two entrants in the fair’s swine show.
Exhibiting a pair of pigs and promoting the fair as the event’s Fairest of the Fair for 2026 added up to a busy few days for Holtz at the annual event, which wraps up its four-day run Aug. 30 in Gillett.
“You’d think it’s a lot of pressure, but I really enjoy exhibiting,” she said. “I’ve been exhibiting for nine years. I’m showing swine this year and basically I’m helping out with shows, working with other exhibitors to get their animals ready, that kind of stuff.”
Holtz, a 2025 graduate of Oconto Falls High School now majoring in electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, has been promoting the fair since being named Fairest of the Fair in May.
“As Fairest of the Fair, I have to plan my outfits, so that’s obviously a big part of it,” she said. “I’ve talked to different people just to convince them come and visit. It’s a lot of marketing. I’ve done a lot of parades, met a lot of exhibitors, met a lot of people in the community.
“I’ve been working with the Fairest of the Fair Committee to get this fair ready, too. I’m here supporting our exhibitors and our youth. I’m reaching out to people who are doing bigger events throughout Wisconsin and bringing them here and showing them what Oconto County has to offer. We have people here who make their own honey and make their own jam. It’s not just exhibitors who bring their crops in. It’s kids that are making their own lotions and body scrubs. It’s a bunch of different things.”
Events like the Oconto County Youth Fair are a big deal for area organizations like 4-H clubs and FFA chapters, according to Holtz.
“It allows younger people to get out and meet people in the community and meet people from different cities, bond together and work with different animals,” she said. “Not everybody can work with a pig. Not everybody can work with a 1,500-pound beef steer. It allows the community to come out and support these kids. It shows all their passion and all their work.”
There’s also more to the fair than showing animals, Holtz said.
“We do crops. We do vegetables from our gardens. We do photography. I do baking,” she said. “You can bring almost anything into the fair that you do throughout the year, and that’s such a big thing.”
Holtz was the only applicant for this year’s Fairest of the Fair position.
“I actually have an aunt on my dad’s side who was Fairest (of the Fair) 30 years ago for Oconto County, and I have an aunt on my mom’s side that was Fairest in 2007,” she said. “It’s kind of a legacy for my family, and I was like, ‘This is the year to do it; it’s perfect.’”
Fairest of the Fair Josie Holtz brushes Floppy, her entrant in the lightweight barrow class of the Oconto County Youth Fair’s swine show. (Greg Seubert)
