MANSFIELD — Nicole Beverage and her family had the roof of their barn ripped off during a tornado less than five months ago.
Saturday morning, Beverage, a Plymouth High School junior, sold her eighth-place champion dairy steer for $5,000 — setting a new Richland County Junior Fair Livestock Auction record.
Elite Excavating, who bid $4,000, partnered with Milliron Auto Parts, contributing $1,000, to get her to the record sale, previously set minutes prior by Madison’s Allyson Cook.
Beverage said Saturday morning’s sale was a bittersweet moment.
“With this being such an eventful year for us, it was definitely really special,” she said.
The Plymouth junior has been showing animals at the county fair since kindergarten. Once she moved up to third grade, Beverage began participating in the junior fair — gradually showing larger animals each year.
“A lot of hard work has been put in over the years,” she said Saturday, while standing outside of the new show arena at the Richland County Fairgrounds.
‘A blessing in disguise’
On Thursday, March 14, an F2 tornado, classified by the National Weather Service office in Cleveland, roared through Plymouth Township.
The twister, packing winds of 120 miles an hour, damaged three homes in the area — including Beverage’s family home and barn.
“It was definitely a crazy night (March 14),” she said. “We were all pretty scared.”
“We didn’t really think anything was actually going to happen. Everything always kind of goes around us, but this time it didn’t. We were very blessed to be okay and our animals.”
The March storm produced the third confirmed tornado in Richland County in the last five years, including April 2019 in Shelby, and June 2022 in a wooded area of a southeastern portion of the county.
Beverage said her family’s experience in March was a “blessing in disguise,” sparking closer relationships with her family and fair animals.
After the tornado, she’s noticed her dairy steer is more sensitive to loud noises and fast moving objects. The steer also seems to get nervous when it’s darker outside or if a storm is coming, Beverage said.
“We all kind of just bonded over it (experience),” she said. “I worked a lot more with my steer…It (steer) being a few miles away from home, it was definitely harder to spend more time with, but it was worth it 100 percent.”
Emotional fair week met with support
In March, Beverage’s mother, Jenny Beverage, described her family’s experience sheltering in the basement of their home during the tornado.
“We were only down there for maybe five minutes and we could hear things come crashing down,” she told Richland Source in March. “We heard the wind start to pick up and things started crashing down.”
“Right after that happened, my kids said their ears started popping. So my husband (Keith) said to get them down on the floor. So the kids got down on the floor and we got over top of them and covered stuff with blankets and just prayed that we were going to make it through,” Jenny said in March.
On Saturday morning, the mother was brought to tears as she watched her daughter set a new livestock auction record.
She said it’s been an emotional week — the thought of her children nearly losing their fair projects still in the back of her mind.
“To see our family at the fair come together for us and for her, we’re definitely grateful for it,” Jenny said Saturday.
Livestock auction makes its debut in new show arena
Last year’s livestock auction set nine record high sales. History continued to be made at Saturday’s 174th Richland County Fair.
Hayden Harriman, of Ontario, sold his grand champion meat goat for $5,300, a new auction best. He also sold his fifth place champion for $2,100.
Madison’s Carson Cook had his eighth place champion hog auctioned for a record $8,100.
This year’s event marked the first livestock sale to take place in the fairground’s new $1.2 million show arena — an air-conditioned, 9,200-square foot building, which was funded by approximately 150 donors.
(Photos of the Richland County Junior Fair Livestock Auction taken Saturday.)
