Monday at the Warren County Prime Beef Festival kicked off with the Swine Show. Lynn Shimmin with the Warren County Prime Beef Festival committee says there were 38 hogs entered between the two divisions- Festival, and Open.
“Those hogs were part of a 4-H project and were shown by the exhibitor throughout the summer at their county or state fairs. And then, the [Open] division is if you substituted a pig in. Many of these county fairs are two months before the Prime Beef Festival, so if your hog grew fast, he might be too big to show,” says Shimmin. “Logan Campbell won the Festival, and his brother Bryce was reserved champion there. And then in the open part of it, Aubrey Killey won the Grand Champion Barrow, and Rachel Leary was reserve in that division.”

Logan Campbell, who won Grand Champion in the Festival Division of the Swine Show. Campbell reflects on his summer show season leading up to the Prime Beef Festival.
“We won our county fair, so we got to go to the Regional Throw Down,” says Campbell. “And then we went to State Fair. We did well there, and then we came here, and we had a great day too.”
Blake Hennenfent was the judge for the 2024 Festival Show. He says that even this late in the show season, the quality of animals was still high.

“So, that white boar that won [champion] and that red gilt that [won] reserved, those are some pretty high-quality pigs. I thought they were pretty awesome, fun to look at,” says Hennenfent. “You get this late in the summer, it’s pretty cool to have pigs that are that fresh and that good-looking still.”
The Warren County Prime Beef Festival is taking place from August 31 through September 7th. Check out more PBF events here.