Author: Sarah Sakurazawa

  • Rabbit barn volunteer brings big heart to tending bunnies and helping kids show at the fair

    Rabbit barn volunteer brings big heart to tending bunnies and helping kids show at the fair

    Rabbit barn volunteer brings big heart to tending bunnies and helping kids show at the fair

    By Alex Hodson 
    Blue Ribbon Stories intern  

    Click on photos for more information!

    Name: Joey Banta
    Job description: Volunteer at the Northwest Washington Fair
    Unofficial job title: Rabbit security
    Hometown: Everson, Washington

    As far as Joey Banta is concerned, making sure bunnies in the Northwest Washington Fair rabbit barn are happy is the most important job he does all summer. A longtime volunteer (20 years in 2026) in the rabbit department, he laughs as he calls himself — in mock-superhero tones — “rabbit security.”
    His duties range from decorating the staging area with hay bales and sacks of animal feed to coaching first-time 4-H exhibitors. The best part for him, he says, is working alongside his wife, Shari, rabbit superintendent for 27 years in 2026, and daughter, Christine. The family feeds and moves rabbits around depending on where they are needed for judging and keeps the barn swept and clean.
    Easily recognizable at the fair by his “Rabbit Security” shirt, Banta takes a week off from work to help manage the barn.

    “Best part of being rabbit security is that all of our family is involved in this.”

    Fair factor: “It’s important that kids learn about the agricultural end of it. Just being involved in it with other children and the competition of it. It’ll help them be more responsible as adults.” 

    ‘I wouldn’t miss it for nothing’: “Best part of being rabbit security is that all of our family is involved in this, and we get to be together for a whole week.”

    Hardest part of the job: “Keeping the floors clean.” 

    Growth opportunity: Showing at the fair “teaches kids responsibility, teaches them growth, teaches them how an animal will actually survive. They learn the importance of being in some place at the right time.”

    Planting seeds: Banta’s daughter Christine works with the younger kids. “She went through this program. I think it’s important that exhibitors return and teach the younger kids.” 

    Hare-raising moments: According to Banta, rabbits may bite, so it’s his job to make sure visitors don’t reach into the cages. 

    If this rabbit security thing doesn’t pan out: The Banta family’s connection to agriculture goes beyond their work at the fair. Both Banta and his wife work as truck drivers, delivering loads of molasses to dairies throughout the Pacific Northwest and the lower mainland of Canada. 

    Hoppy-go-lucky: “I’m just being here, keeping the kids happy.” 

  • Whatcom County Farm Tour connects community to local farms and farmers

    Whatcom County Farm Tour connects community to local farms and farmers

    Whatcom County Farm Tour connects community to local farms and farmers

    By Alex Hodson
    BlueRibbonStories.com intern 

    Click on photos for more information!

    For nearly 20 years, Sustainable Connection’s Whatcom County Farm Tour has introduced visitors to local farms and the folks who grow crops and critters here. Thousands of people have viewed live animals, tasted delicious farm products and asked farmers questions about their work. 

    This Square Share shows photos from the 2025 tour. 

  • Heritage, history and heart ride together in the eight-horse hitch at the fair

    Heritage, history and heart ride together in the eight-horse hitch at the fair

    Few people on the planet have the skill to drive a team of eight draft horses. 

    You can see that singular skill in spectacular action only once during this year’s Northwest Washington Fair on Friday, Aug. 21. 

    See draft horses in beautiful action at a daily grandstand horse show at 12:30 p.m. from Aug. 17 to 22 at the Northwest Washington Fair. Free with fair admission. 

    Each horse weighs about 2,000 pounds. Their horseshoes are the size of dinner plates. Harnessed together in lead, point, swing and wheel teams, that makes for eight tons of might and muscle that each driver controls only with leather lines, voice and an all-but-token hand brake. 

    Up here in the northwesternmost part of the United States, a rare cluster of families come together each August to drive six- and eight-horse hitches at the fair grandstand – and teach future generations. They’re tops at what they do, with often-homebred horses, a different lineage and more varied skill set than the Amish, Scottish and other regions known for showing draft horses. 

    Nowhere else in the world

    “There’s not another place in the United States is as crazy as we are here in Lynden,” driver Fred Polinder Jr. once said. A dairy farmer who showed draft horses at the fair starting after World War II, Polinder, who died in 2015, judged horse shows from Scotland to Saskatchewan. 

    At the fair, they do what’s called the free drive. Drivers and horses let loose and careen around the grandstand arena in a stirring display that’s done nowhere else in the world, according to Polinder. 

    In this video, you’ll see Scott Hamstra drive the Mt. Baker Clydesdales, Alan Manning steer the Shezam Clydesdales and Craig Wilder take the lines of the Reinbow Ranch spotted paint horses. 

    These men may be champions, but they’d be the first to say they’re still learning. They say they’re just passing down what they were given.

    Early mornings at the fair, Willard Wilder taught Alan Manning to drive by hitching a team and driving around the fairgrounds.

    Scott Hamstra was taught by his father, Bob Hamstra, currently the open-class heavy-horse superintendent at the fair. In turn, Bob Hamstra says he owes his abilities to what he learned in the fair’s draft-horse barn from Fred Polinder Jr. and Bill Shagren. Scott’s son, Ryan Hamstra, rides alongside him in the ring, continuing the hands-on heritage. 

    Alan Manning will tell you how long ago he asked draft horse driver Willard Wilder to teach him. In the early mornings at the fair, he recalls, they’d hitch a team and practice by driving around the fairgrounds. 

    Paul Nelson, a Vietnam War veteran and owner of the Reinbow Ranch team, said he was honored to have “a master like Craig Wilder” drive his beloved horses.

    Some of the formidable horsemen seen in this 2018 video — Pete Groen, Paul Nelson and Craig Shagren — are now gone. But you can still see their devotion to their community and horsemanship on a morning in August 2018, when three teams drove eight-horse hitches at the Northwest Washington Fair. 

    Note: Usually we use local music in our videos, but this 2018 video featured music by Ketsa, Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC BY): Music by ketsa.uk

  • Protected: Farm tech turns manure and muck into energy and fertilizer – and keeps a lot of yuck out of local landfills

    Protected: Farm tech turns manure and muck into energy and fertilizer – and keeps a lot of yuck out of local landfills

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  • Her felt creations won big at the fair – and caught the eye of Martha Stewart Living

    Her felt creations won big at the fair – and caught the eye of Martha Stewart Living

    Visitors to the crafts exhibits at the 2011 Northwest Washington Fair weren’t the only ones who took notice of Margaret Nathon’s whimsical recycled-wool dolls, which earned her a best of class ribbon. Editors from Martha Stewart Living magazine came calling, too. 

    “I thought this has got to be a crank call,” laughs the retired grade-school teacher. 

    But the New York editor assured her it was for real. They were planning a story about helping kids put on a puppet show with a homemade cardboard stage and had noticed her felt puppets online. Nathon has marketed her puppets on the craft website Etsy since 2007.

    The editors asked if Nathon could send some puppets for a photo shoot to go with their green and blue color scheme. “It was on a Thursday, and they asked if you can have them here on Monday,” says the crafter. 

    Anticipating reader interest in Nathon’s work, the editor asked her if she had some inventory on hand if orders started pouring in. When Nathon admitted she only had a few, the editor advised, “Well, get sewing! You need 100 puppets in case people want to buy them.”

    Nathon recalls one of her daughters pitched in and they stitched up more than 100 puppets over the next two months.

    The magazine photographed some for the story and then … “The editor said there was an executive decision and we’re not going to do the do-it-yourself section in the magazine anymore.” So they sent her puppets back. 

    It was disappointing, but Nathon, who grew up as a Wisconsin potato farmer’s daughter, came up with a plan B. She took some to the Whatcom Museum gift store and put the rest on Etsy. “They all sold,” she says. Plus, she had a fun plan for the profits: “I told my daughter, let’s go to Hawaii!” While it wasn’t a magazine spread, vacationing in an island paradise that winter was a memorable reward for their work. 

    “It was an honor to be considered by them, to know the quality was high enough,” says Nathon. Besides, “I just do it for joy.”

    Nathon and her husband, a Boeing retiree, were avid fair fans when they lived in southern California. So it was only natural that they checked out the Northwest Washington Fair when they moved to Bellingham in 2004. Nathon dove into the fair spirit, volunteering at the WSU Whatcom County Master Gardeners’ booth and the Whatcom Weavers Guild wool show. “I like the way they landscape the fair, the way they keep it up so nice.”

    “You need to go to the fair, it’s one of those things that’s just part of our heritage.”

    “I really like the way the fair reaches out,” says Nathon, who did 4-H for about eight years as a child, showing vegetables and sewing projects. (She chuckles that she wasn’t in FFA but FHA – Future Homemakers of America – in high school.)  “Whenever I talk to anyone who’s new here, telling people what not to miss, I say, you need to go to the fair, it’s one of those things that’s just part of our heritage.”

    Nathon reels off a long list of what she enjoys at the fair. “I love to people watch. The different musical groups. I go through every barn and see all the animals.”

    For snacks, she always beelines for the ice cream at the Whatcom County Dairy Women booth. “I just love that.”

    Still, Nathon’s favorite fair fun remains the craft exhibits. 

     “I like to see what’s new. I can always zero in on someone who’s still doing colors from the old days. I love to be surprised by someone who takes the old colors and does it in a new way. I like to see the new cutting edge of crafting,” says Nathon, who is a member of Allied Arts of Whatcom County and exhibits these days in their annual six-week holiday show. She also donates her dolls for fund-raising auctions to non-profits such as the Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center. 

    She values how the fair honors the tradition of handwork. “I think there are people like myself who cannot NOT make something. They have to have their hands going. I love that aspect of the fair.

     “Personally, it’s the satisfaction of knowing that I can make this. I can buy a doll or a puppet, but if I make it there’s a sense of pride that I’ve done this. “I’m always thinking of a different way to do something or something I could try.”

    Her advice to anyone who’s showing crafts for the first time? “Go to the library and whatever your craft is, look to see what’s out there and current. Then make sure your item has the wow factor, something that’s different, really unique. 

    “Take a chance, see what feedback you get. Don’t be afraid to put it in the fair. Give it a go!”

  • Army veteran’s painting wins grand prize at the fair – and changes his life’s course.

    Army veteran’s painting wins grand prize at the fair – and changes his life’s course.

    U.S. Army veteran Clark Cotner of Birch Bay, Wash., had just taught himself to paint when friends talked him into entering one of his pictures at the 2013 Northwest Washington Fair. He ended up winning the Best of Division grand prize!

    In this video, Cotner explains what showing at the fair means to him and how painting helps him heal from injuries suffered during his service. We talked to him in the old Expo Building where Cotner was doing a painting demonstration at the fair in 2013. 

    At that time, Clark Cotner said that, with his painting teacher’s encouragement, he’d enrolled in art school. You never know where entering and showing your work at the fair will take you!

  • Showing beef cattle at the fair can be nerveracking but ‘every year, you’ll get better’

    Showing beef cattle at the fair can be nerveracking but ‘every year, you’ll get better’

    • Name: Travis VanZanten
    • Age: 15 in 2013
    • Hometown: Lynden, Wash.
    • School: Lynden High School in fall 2022
    • 4-H club: ShowMasters 4-H Club

    If you go to the Northwest Washington Fair early in the morning, you’ll see hundreds of kids washing, brushing and grooming their critters (and their pens) so they look their shiniest and prettiest when they show. 

    Travis VanZanten of Lynden was one of those exhibitors at the 2013 fair. (There were a total of 1,311 at the 2023 fair.) He’d shown beef cattle at the Northwest Washington Fair for five years when we talked to him. Then heading into his junior year at Lynden High School, where he also played football, he belonged to the ShowMasters 4-H Club. We saw him in action in the barn, at the washrack and in the ring, with his Limousin steer. He says he loves the work and remembers he could hardly wait to be old enough to show.

    In this Fair Share, you’ll hear him explain why he thinks Limousins (and their gorgeous glossy coats) are the best, what it’s like to compete against his friends, and a funny fair memory that landed him in the newspaper.  

    In this audio Fair Share, Travis VanZanten talks about showing Limousin beef cattle at the 2009 Northwest Washington Fair and shares what can help beginners. 

    Produced by Sarah Sakurazawa / Blue Ribbon Stories

    Music “I and the Village” by Jan Peters of Whatcom County

    In the beef cattle barn, exhibitors blow dry the cattle after they’ve been washed to give their coats more volume. Exhibitors want them to look, well, meatier. That’s important  if they’re going to sell their animal at the market sale because they want more money per pound. One fair mom explained that it takes 30 minutes to an hour to dry an animal, working forward from the butt to add depth and volume. 

    The “hair dryers” are two-foot-long blue tubes that resemble cannister vacuum cleaners with extra-long hoses. The cattle are set up in a rack for hairdrying, complete with a feed pan where they can nibble on feed and treats while they’re dried with high-pressure ambient air, not heat. It’s like a beauty parlor for beef cattle!

    As luxurious as their glossy sable-brown coat looks, it’s all for a practical purpose: “We want them to look like they’re carrying a lot of carcass,” a 4-H mom said. 

    You can learn more about farming in our other Fair Shares – listen in to the fair fun!

  • For decades, this devoted fair fan camped out to get the best grandstand show tickets

    For decades, this devoted fair fan camped out to get the best grandstand show tickets

    Taylor Swift fans who went to any lengths to get seats to the 2023 Eras tour could take inspiration from Everson, Washington, dairy wife Pauline VanWeerdhuizen.

    For about two decades, this mother of four would camp out at the Northwest Washington Fair office the night before grandstand show tickets went on sale to make sure she got up-front seats. She says she started when the fair began charging for grandstand shows and stopped once the fair switched to online ticketing in 2004. 

    “If I’m going and seeing a show, I’m going to get a real good seat or I’m not going to go,” she says. “That’s the best way to do it.”

    Around 9 p.m. the night before, she’d take a lawn chair and a sleeping bag to the fair office. 

    It was a solo operation. “Nobody wanted to go with me,” she sighs. Her husband, now-retired dairy farmer Bob VanWeerdhuizen, “said he’s not that crazy.”

    But for Pauline it was simple: “I love the fair.”

    “Usually it was the first Monday in June, the last day of May they opened up ticket sales,” she recalls. 

    One year, their daughter Debbie VanderVeen, a retired dairy farmer, remembers, “Dad got up and he’d forgotten it was ticket time. The car was gone …”

    “Here he is at 2 in the morning looking around the house for me,” laughs Pauline VanWeerdhuizen. “He was glad when I got home at 9:30!”

    “There’s others there, but I try to be first. To me, that’s part of the fair.”

    Ever the enterprising Dutch farmer, VanWeerdhuizen adds, “I would bring coffee and doughnuts and sell them in line — I’d get my seats paid for!”

    It paid off in other ways: The VanWeerdhuizens had front-row seats at country music megastar Garth Brooks’ surprise appearance with Trisha Yearwood at the 1997 fair. 

    Superstars or not, for Pauline VanWeerdhuizen, “The fair is a gathering place for people, it’s just really special.”

    The recipe below is from “100 Years at the Northwest Washington Fair.” This history of the fair’s first century features lots of other ribbon-winning recipes, from Phoebe Judson’s Westward-Ho rolls to Myrtle Moe’s bread and butter pickles.

    Sour Cream Apple Muffins

    Pauline VanWeerdhuizen of Everson, Washington

    Throughout the 1970s, Pauline VanWeerdhuizen often sent these muffins out into the fields at her family’s dairy farm for workers to enjoy. She entered them at the fair in the 1990s and won a blue ribbon.  During fair week, they were the breakfast staple on the ride to the fairgrounds for her children’s 5-in-the-morning 4-H barn duties.

    2 cups flour

    1 cup sugar

    1 tablespoon baking powder

    1-1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 

    1/2 teaspoon salt

    1/2  teaspoon baking soda

    2 large eggs, beaten

    1 cup sour cream

    1/4 cup butter

    1 large apple, chopped, unpeeled

    Topping:

    1/4 cup sugar

    3 tablespoons flour 

    1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

    2 tablespoons butter

    Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

    Grease muffin tin or line with cupcake papers. 

    In large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda.  

    In small bowl, beat together eggs, sour cream and butter. 

    Add all at once to dry ingredients with apples. Stir until moist. 

    Fill greased muffin tins two thirds full. 

    Mix together topping ingredients. Sprinkle over muffin mixture.  

    Bake for 20 minutes.

  • In the family way: Raising a daughter and 1,400 cows like her parents did before her

    In the family way: Raising a daughter and 1,400 cows like her parents did before her

    “It’s how my mom raised me,” says this third-generation farmer, beaming down at her firstborn. 

    During this weekly “vet check,” DeHaan and Steiger walk through the entire herd of 700 Holsteins and Jerseys at Heritage Dairy in Everson, Washington, to assess their overall health. As they go, Steiger more closely examines anywhere from 50 to 100 cows that he’s been following or that the farmer wants him to monitor. 

    As Steiger rapid-fires observations for each cow, DeHaan jots down its pregnancy details. Steiger palpates the cow’s uterus and uses a portable ultrasound scanner to determine where it is in its gestation stage and if it’s carrying a bull calf — it’s a boy! — or a heifer calf – it’s a girl! While they work, the cows munch on TMR, or total mixed ration, a specially designed combination of nutrient-rich grains, hay, alfalfa, grass and feed supplements such as whey. 

    On a warm September morning, 26-year-old DeHaan took a break to talk about her love for her work, her hopes for her daughter, and what her father taught her.

    Name: Jana DeHaan 

    1,450: Total number of cows in her care. 700 at Heritage Dairy, 300 at Bel-Lyn Farms and 450 at Paradise Jerseys, all owned by her family.

    Family ways: “We were born and raised in this. As soon as we could walk, we were tagging along with our dad, running around on the farm.”

    1978: When her grandfather Arlyn Plagerman founded Bel-Lyn Farms in Lynden, Wash. Her father, Leroy Plagerman, now runs the operation. 

    Mom knew best: DeHaan explains her mother, Rhonda Plagerman, home-schooled her children on the family farm, as well as “helping chase cows back in if they got out. She always brought out food if we were stuck on a tractor” finishing up a long day, she recalls. 

    12: Number of kids in the Plagerman family. DeHaan is the fifth of the dozen and the oldest daughter. 

    ‘With our dad’: “Mom would often send us out with our dad — riding in the tractor with him, helping feed the heifers. I remember being so small I’d have to run to keep up with him with his long legs walking!” she laughs. 

    ‘The best way to learn’: “Growing up in it is the best way to learn” farming, says DeHaan. “Looking back on my childhood, I couldn’t imagine a better way to grow up, playing hay forts, playing tag, watching calves being born. It was a really special way to grow up, having all the land to grow up on, riding our horses around our land.”

    ‘I learned everything from my dad’: DeHaan prized most what she learned from her parents but also enrolled in the Running Start program during high school, earning an associate degree from Whatcom Community College in arts and sciences. She says she also worked milking for local farmer Debbie VanderVeen. 

    ‘It’s in your blood’: “You have to love it to do it. When you really love it like we do there’s nothing else you can imagine doing.”

    “To have the opportunity to grow up on a farm will be a huge advantage and blessing in her life.”

    Above and beyond: DeHaan served as the 2015-2016 Whatcom County Dairy Ambassador and as the 2016-2017 Washington State Alternate Ambassador. Her sister Jewel Plagerman was the 2020-2021 Whatcom County Dairy Ambassador. 

    Changing times: “We all started working on the farm, but quite a few of us have left the dairy,” says DeHaan. Her older brother Layton and younger sister Jewel work in the family business. 

    Different path: DeHaan’s husband, Mason, grew up working on Stormhaaven Farm and at Ronelee Farms in Lynden, Washington. Currently, he’s an HVAC technician. 

    “He misses the work,” says DeHaan. “He really enjoyed working on the dairy, but unless you own it there’s not a lot of money in it, you have to really be in deep to make a career of it.”

    Moving forward: “We hope to pass it on to a future generation,” says DeHaan as Kinleigh coos at a cow. “She already enjoys tagging along with me.”

    Growth pattern: “If she wants to go into farming, to have the opportunity to grow up on a farm will be a huge advantage and blessing in her life.”

    Motherhood modifications: “For sure, I’m not jumping over gates or crawling through headlocks any more like I used to!” DeHaan says her mother will watch Kinleigh more as she gets bigger. 

    “It’s been really fun as she’s getting older and watching her interact with the cows and try to feed them. To see the farm and the world through a child’s eye is really neat — the wonder of a cow, it brings it all back.”

  • ‘Grandpa’s Guernseys’: Dairy family’s roots run deep in Whatcom County

    ‘Grandpa’s Guernseys’: Dairy family’s roots run deep in Whatcom County

    Name: Leon Zweegman

    Farm: Rozelyn Farm, Lynden, Wash.

    Acres: 200 

    Herd: 150 milking cows plus 150 youngstock, about two-thirds Holstein, one-third Guernseys. 

    Roots: “My grandfather and the whole Zweegman family came from Nebraska in 1901 and all settled north of Lynden. We’ve been there ever since.”

    Education: Dairy-science degree from Washington State University.

    All’s fair: The Zweegman family has shown Guernseys at the Northwest Washington Fair since the 1940s. 

    Rise and shine: 4:40 a.m.

    “I have a long day”: “We do most of the work ourselves with one or two employees. I hit the barn at 5. My milker’s usually there then. I feed, scrape alleys, take care of heifers and calves. It’s usually 10:30 to 11 when we have breakfast and then the rest of the day can be any number of things: moving animals, haying or silage, repairs, maybe a chance to run to town for parts. We milk again at 4 in the afternoon. We’re usually done by 8. Irrigation happens whenever that has to be done, so it’s regularly 10 o’clock when I get in for supper at night.”

    A fine line: Some of Zweegman’s cows are direct descendants of his grandfather’s herd. “The first Guernseys came onto our farm in 1917. I have 20, 21, 22nd generation from those very first two cows still in the herd today, the 20th generation from the first two Guernseys Grandpa got.”

     “Still having fun”: Zweegman loves farming because “I’m my own boss. I get to see every sunrise every morning.” 

    Food for thought: It takes two years til a heifer produces milk. Zweegman explains a cow is inseminated at 15 months old, then gives birth nine months later. You don’t have milk production until after two years of feeding and raising her. In effect, a dairy farmer has two herds: “dry” cows and milking cows.

    On the frontier: “You’ve got to get smart about a whole lot of things. People don’t realize how many things we have to be specialists in. Machinery to repair, an electrician, a veterinarian, your day runs into all these. You never know what’s going to pop up: ‘Oh, that’s what I’m doing today.’”  

    Plowing on: “The toughest part is it’s 24/7, 365. We don’t have weekends off like nine-to-fivers do.”

    How farming’s changed: “You have more machinery and the machinery’s gotten a whole lot bigger since I was a kid. What we used to take two weeks to do we do in a day now. Like silage. I can remember when I was a kid it was maybe eight to 10 loads of silage a day and it took a couple of weeks. We can fill a whole silo in a day now, 40-50 loads.”

    Advice for future farmers: “You’ve got to be willing to work hard. You’ve got to love it. Otherwise forget it. It doesn’t cut you any slack.”

    “Guernseys have been my life”: “We’ve developed a lot of bulls that are used nationally and internationally. Almost every Guernsey herd I’ve been to in the five countries where I’ve traveled had blood from our herd. I’ve been in some herds in England that had 30 to 40 animals traced to our bloodlines.”

    Global impact: “If it was purely for milking cows I don’t know if I’d still be doing it. But I just got back from 24 days in Europe with the World Guernsey Conference.” Zweegman and his wife, Lorraine, have “done that five times over the last 12 years, gone to South Africa, Australia, England, Guernsey, eastern Canada. That makes it enjoyable. We’ve got so many great friends around the world.”

    Dairyman Leon Zweegman tells of raising Guernseys and Holsteins on the Lynden, Washington, farm where his family has lived since 1901. 

    Produced by Sarah Sakurazawa / Blue Ribbon Stories

    Music by Jan Peters of Bellingham, Washington