Wrapping up Iowa’s County Fair and Festival season with our final royalty visit, always a popular attraction and feature at Iowa’s County Fairs and Festivals. Emily Ingalls is serving as National Cattle Congress Queen this year from Van Horn, and she says it’s been an eye-opening experience.
“I wanted to run for the National Cattle Congress queen as a role model for young girls as someone that they can look up to, especially in the ag community,” Ingalls said. “I think the work ethic behind farming is important, the 4-H and FFA kids always put so much work into their livestock and it’s something that you can be really proud of.”
One of the activities she’ll remember forever is participating in the State Fair Queen competition.
“The State Fair Queen contest was really a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Ingalls said. “There were so many wonderful girls there that I got to meet and now made a lot of new friends because of it, 104 of us this year. So, there’s a lot of other girls, but it was great because we were all really in the same boat that we had no idea what to expect out of the contest.”
It’s certainly unique and something that collectively very few get to experience, now as for her favorite part.
“Getting to be around the fair with all the other queens that there were a lot of people that you got to interact with,” Ingalls said. “But my favorite activity that we did was when we did our onstage introductions, we got to do a bit of a modeling walk type show and that was a lot of fun.”
Of course, the learning opportunities provided, along with the networking opportunities, happen in a lot of different ways for participants at Iowa’s County Fairs and Festivals, over and above all the entertainment and educational opportunities they present for all attendees.
