Lowell Students Put Months of Work on Display at Kent County Youth Fair
Lowell FFA Secretary Lillian Schut with a steer and heifer. Photo courtest of the Schuts.
Justin Scott - Info@redarrowpreps.com
8/7/2026
For hundreds of young people, the Kent County Youth Fair represents much more than a week of livestock shows and exhibits.
It is the culmination of months of work, and for several Lowell students and families, another opportunity to build on lessons learned through agriculture, 4-H and FFA.
The 91st annual Kent County Youth Fair continues through Aug. 8 in Lowell, with more than 950 young people participating in livestock shows, performing arts and still exhibits.
Among them are several students connected to Lowell Area Schools and the Lowell FFA program.
For Lowell mom Leann Sweany and her family, the fair has become a tradition spanning generations.
Sweany showed pigs as a high school student in the 1990s. After eventually moving her own family to Lowell, she wanted her children to have the opportunity to experience the fair themselves.
“I showed pigs in the 90’s as a high schooler and enjoyed the experience,” Sweany said. “When we moved our family to Lowell we wanted to get our kids involved.”
The Sweanys and Smiths
Kylee and Rylee Sue Sweany with their pigs.
Sweany and her sister, Linsey Smith, started a group called Pigs with Purpose with their children. What began as a small family effort has grown to include multiple families and 13 young exhibitors.
Sweany’s children have each become involved in the fair. Her daughter Kaylee, a recent graduate, was also involved with Lowell FFA. Rylee Sue and Dominic continue participating in the fair, while youngest daughter Kylee is involved as well.
All of Sweany’s children show pigs, with the family also branching into other areas of the fair, including chicken showmanship.
For those showing pigs, preparation starts long before fair week.
“Fair begins for us around Spring Break,” Sweany said. “That is around the time we get our pigs and begin preparing: training, feeding, and learning about our pigs.”
As the fair approaches, the workload increases. The pigs need to be walked, fed and weighed, while exhibitors prepare signs and auction letters and reach out to members of the community.
Lowell FFA has also provided support along the way.
“Our Lowell FFA has always been gracious and generous to us, allowing our group to borrow a scale or bounce advice off of,” Sweany said.
Once fair week arrives, the experience becomes a group effort.
Families within Pigs with Purpose share meals, clean pens and make sure exhibitors have what they need throughout the week.
“We all do what we can to make our week great, using our own gifts, talents and resources,” Sweany said. “Many hands make light work.”
The experience also reinforces lessons that do not always come from winning a ribbon. Animals have good days and bad days. Sometimes things go wrong on show day. There are long hours, hot weather and plenty of waiting.
“It keeps us all humble, as animals have good and bad days too,” Sweany said. “And it may or may not fall on show day!”
Sweany said the experience teaches young people to continue working even when things become uncomfortable and to help those around them succeed.
“We have to help others so we can all be successful and have fun!” she said.
For the family, even the unpredictability has become part of the tradition.
“We all say, ‘it’s Fair week!’ meaning anything can happen… and we love it!”
Sweany is now watching another generation experience something she remembers from her own time as an exhibitor.
She, Smith, Tom Oesch and Curt Mulder all showed pigs at the Kent County Youth Fair in the late 1990s. This year, the four returned to the fair together while helping pass that experience on to their children.
Another Lowell student at the fair, Lillian Schut, has used her agricultural interests to compete at the state and national levels.
Schut raises and shows cattle, including a steer and a heifer at the Kent County Youth Fair. Steers are castrated male cattle raised primarily for beef, while heifers are young female cattle that have not yet had a calf. She has developed extensive experience with the Hereford breed. Herefords are a breed of beef cattle known for their distinctive red bodies and white faces, as well as their docile temperament and adaptability.
In 2024, Schut joined Fox Loney and Elayna Hawkins in representing the Kent County Youth Fair at the Junior National Hereford Expo in Grand Island, Nebraska. Together, the three exhibitors brought half of Michigan’s cattle participating in the event.
Schut also competed in the National Junior Hereford Association individual sales contest, which challenges competitors to demonstrate their salesmanship and marketing skills while presenting an agricultural product to a panel of judges. Schut placed first in the junior division.
She said one of her favorite parts of being involved in 4-H is the relationships she has built and the opportunities she has received through showing livestock.
Her success has extended into Lowell FFA. Earlier this year, Schut won the Michigan FFA state championship in Creed Speaking. The event requires students to memorize and present the FFA Creed before answering questions about its meaning and interpretation.
The state championship earned Schut the opportunity to represent Michigan at the National FFA Convention and Expo in October.
During the 2026-27 school year, she will also serve as secretary of the Lowell FFA chapter. FFA is part of Schut’s family history as well. Her father, John Schut, was the longtime director of the Caledonia FFA program.
The experiences of Schut and the Sweany family show how the Kent County Youth Fair connects with education well beyond the classroom. Students spend months caring for animals, tracking their growth and health, learning how to communicate with buyers and judges, working alongside other exhibitors and dealing with the unexpected.
