All Ellie Gosser focused on were her perceived mistakes.

The six judges saw something else.

Gosser, a rising junior at Southwestern High School, was crowned the 2022 Shelby County Royal champion Wednesday night at the Shelby County Fair.

“It was a surprise,” she said with a big smile. “I tally my mistakes and I wasn’t expecting it. I messed up too much.”

Gosser was one of six competitors for the coveted Shelby County Royal title. She is the third representative in a row of the Southwestern Shamrocks 4-H group to capture the award following wins by Dane Kissell and Camille Thopy.

Also competing Wednesday were Avery Everhart, Ella Koch, Sarah Fitzgerald, Krista Brown (photo below) and Tyler Harker.

Each a champion showman in their particular breed of animal, the challenge in the Shelby County Royal is to show six different breeds of animal – swine, horses and pony, goats, sheep, dairy cattle and beef cattle – and express knowledge to the various judges of each breed of animal.

“This is extremely difficult,” said Scott Gabbard, county extension director of Purdue Extension Shelby County and the emcee for the Shelby County Royal. “These are animals that are not in their barn. They don’t work with them on a daily basis.”

Shelby County Fair livestock superintendents secure the animals to be shown and the competitors are randomly assigned to those animals. The pairings don’t always work well.

Sarah Fitzgerald drew a sheep that wanted no part of the event Wednesday and eluded as many as seven people before being corralled and removed. Fitzgerald was given another sheep to show.

Gosser was most concerned about showing a horse in the second round of the competition.

“It’s the least familiar to me,” she said.

The competitors got through the first four rounds which left the dairy cattle and beef cattle, which is what Gosser shows at the fair.

“It gave me an end of time comfort because I knew that was what I was going to end with so I felt better,” she said.

With the award in hand, Gosser could not even guess how many hours she has spent at the fairgrounds over the fair’s first three days.

“I don’t know. I really don’t … I can’t even give you an estimate,” she said.

The 4-H livestock auction is tonight at the Shelby County Fair, which has continued on despite triple-digit heat indexes Tuesday and Wednesday.

“It’s gone really well,” said Gabbard. “The kids and the families all worked well together. Yes, it’s hot and, at times, very miserable but that being said, we’ve worked well together and so far, so good.”