For Jennifer Harper, winning the Mrs. Rockingham County Fair was a dream come true.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Harper, who is a Bridgewater College graduate and also holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Shenandoah University, works as a pharmacist at the Walmart on John Wayland Highway near Dayton,\u00a0but she\u2019s also long wanted to be a Rockingham County Fair pageant queen, and now she is.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a title I\u2019ve wanted since I moved to Rockingham County in 2002,\u201d Harper said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As Mrs. Rockingham County Fair, Harper received a $500 scholarship and a $150 cash prize.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Harper was one of 17 entrants in the Rockingham County Fair scholarship pageants, which took place Saturday night, and one of three women crowned queens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grayson Long, 20, a Virginia Tech sophomore from Mount Clinton, was selected as Miss Rockingham County Fair. Long is majoring in animal and poultry sciences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her winnings included a $2,000 scholarship and a $750 cash prize.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to serve the fair that has raised me into the woman I am today,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Long, a Turner Ashby High School graduate, said she grew up showing sheep at the fair.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Olivia Sinnett, a sophomore at East Rockingham High School, also said she was excited about her win as Junior Miss Rockingham County Fair.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited, and I\u2019m very grateful for the opportunity,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the things that Sinnett hopes to do as fair queen is establish a little free library on the Rockingham County Fairgrounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As Junior Miss Rockingham County Fair, Sinnett gets a $1,000 scholarship and a $150 cash prize.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The women competed in three categories \u2014 the Miss Rockingham County Fair pageant, which was open to women ages 18-22; the Junior Miss Rockingham County Fair pageant, which was open to women ages 15-17; and the Mrs. Pageant, which was open to women 21 years old and over who are married.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to the scholarships offered to the three winners, another scholarship was awarded in honor of Sara Monger, a community member from Elkton, who loved the Rockingham County Fair and who died in a car accident in 2023 at the age of 18 when she was a first-year student at Eastern Mennonite University. The winner of this year’s Sara Monger Scholarship was Taylor Long, a high school student from Broadway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Melissa Stum, events coordinator for the Rockingham County Fair and Pageant Director for the fair, was also honored Saturday night for her 20 years of service to the fair.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stum said she began working as an auditor for the fair in 2006 and became pageant director in 2011.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stum isn\u2019t sure exactly how long the pageant has been going on but believes that it\u2019s been happening for more than 50 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Saturday night pageant is the culmination of a week\u2019s worth of activities, Stum said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spent the whole week practicing and getting ready,\u201d Stum said. \u201cThis year, the girls did amazing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s fair was particularly well attended, with more than 500 friends, family members, and community supporters showing up, Stum said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Saturday was the coronation, it is just the beginning for the new pageant queens who will represent the fair at a variety of events both during the fair and throughout the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are kept very busy,\u201d Stum said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stum also said she wanted to thank those who attended the fair and contributed to the fair scholarships.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just thank everybody for coming out,\u201d Stum said. \u201cOur attendance was up. Our numbers were up. We had a great time. The main thing here is we thank all of our scholarship sponsors for contributing to our scholarships. That\u2019s the gist of it right there is having good sponsorship and getting our community involved in our pageant.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Isaac Stroupe, one of the fair\u2019s two emcees who has served as a pageant emcee before, said he was excited to be involved with the pageant again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a wonderful time-honored tradition, and I hope it continues for years and generations to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Jennifer Harper, winning the Mrs. Rockingham County Fair was a dream come true.\u00a0 Harper, who is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[118348,9,24,12,63,122,124,123,118349],"class_list":["post-312978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-county_fair","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-rockingham_county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}