WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, Ohio — Trevor and Taylor Kirkpatrick are perhaps the most approachable teenagers you’d ever meet. Both are soft-spoken, mild-mannered and laid-back. But once in the show ring, their competitive natures kick in.

“The Kirkpatrick kids are good at what they do and they look smooth in the ring,” said Yvonne Gregg, watching her grandson, David, compete in the ring against Trevor at the Fayette County Fair earlier this month. “To look at that brother-sister pair, you’d think they were born with a small whip in their hands. Just amazing.”

The Showmanship of the Year award at the fair is coveted by all who enter the ring. Trevor captured that award four of the past five years; the year he didn’t win the title, he was beaten by his sister, Taylor.

“She knows how to do it, so I quit giving her advice,” Trevor said, with a laugh.

Showmanship awards are given at any county fair in Ohio, but Fayette County Fair administrators say youth in this central Ohio county are more competitive with animals in a show ring than they are on an athletic field.

“A lot of it starts at home, with our own animals,” Trevor said. “You need to work with animals every day, if not twice a day. I practice by weaving in and out of trees around the yard with the animals.”

Both began with rabbits while in 4-H, but a year later each made the move to pigs.

“In the ring, practice makes perfect,” Trevor said. “There’s definitely a way to do things out there in the ring. For instance, you need to keep your animal 10 feet away from the judge and keep the animal roughly 30 feet from left to right across in the ring. Never get in between the animal and judge and always stay out of corners. There’s a lot of strategy and skill when it comes to being in the ring.”

Competition for this pair is not limited to the county level. They annually take their talents to the Ohio State Fair. They also travel to state fairs in Colorado, Iowa, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.

Trevor went to the Ohio State Fair earlier this month and was Overall Barrow Showman for the second time in the fair’s history. He was among five other teens from Fayette County to capture their class in the Senior Barrow Swine Showman at the fair, setting another state fair record. According to fair officials, no one county has ever won each division in state fair history.

As a member of the Pig Dudes 4-H Club in Fayette County, Trevor first won as Overall Barrow Showman at the 2007 Ohio State Fair.

Trevor and Taylor both participated at the FFA Chapter at Miami Trace High School near Washington Court House. Last year Trevor and his school team (Trevor, Colt Penwell, Jamie Payton, Austin Chester, Garrett Reed and Tanner Mick) competed in the State Career Development Event judging contest. They placed first among 156 teams.

“Once you find your love, you just stick with it,” Trevor said. “Once I started showing pigs, I found it and wanted to do more.”

Trevor will attend Blackhawk College in Illinois this fall, with a major in Animal Science. Taylor is a sophomore at Miami Trace High School in Fayette County. She plans on following her brother to Blackhawk, only she’ll be studying education.