By GAYLE WEBER

gweber@dailynews.net

WaKEENEY -- A little fingerpainting, some hula hoops and a lid to a hog feeder.

Trego County 4-Hers put all those items to work, plus a lot of duct tape and staples, to decorate hay bales during a competition Thursday at the Trego County Fair.

Going with the theme "The Best of the Last 99 Years," four 4-H groups put together four distinct ideas to commemorate what has happened during the 99 years of the Trego County Fair.

"We didn't really have an idea until we kept seeing this on the news the last week," said Jessica Buchholz, pointing to the Ogallah 4-H club's man on the moon decorations.

The Trego Top Succeeders put together a birthday cake to honor the Trego County Fair's 99 years, allowing members to fingerpaint the entire bale, which was covered with a white sheet and decorated with balloons. Meanwhile, the Willing Workers went with the theme "Storing Memories," as they covered their bale with a red sheet and topped it with a lid from a hog feeder to create a silo.

All eight members of the Ogallah club pitched in to help with decorating their hay bale to commemorate Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon 40 years ago.

"I sewed together 20 yards of material for this," Buchholz, a club leader, said.

Her 10-year-old daughter, Emily, got to walk on the moon Thursday, helping to post the group's Apollo 11 replica on top of the bale. The group also put a cardboard cutout of Neil Armstrong and a flag on top of the moon.

"I thought it was pretty good," Emily Buchholz said of the project. "Because it was a big thing that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon."

Emily Buchholz was one of many 4-H members competing in the bale-decorating contest who also had to get their bucket calves and cattle ready to show later in the afternoon.

Ten-year-old Molly Moden had a steer to attend to, but had to finish helping her Busy Kansans club decorate their "Happy Trails" themed-bale first.

The group covered the bale with white sheets to resemble a covered wagon and attached four red hula hoops to the side for wheels.

"The farmer keeps dying," Moden said of the scarecrow used to hold the reins of the covered wagon. "First his boot falls off, then his hair."

The group used a toy horse to pull the wagon and two scarecrows to guide it.

"We are so creative," 11-year-old Teghan Sells said, standing back and admiring the club's work after completing the bale.

"It's a lot of fun just getting to work with all of the people that you don't really get to spend a lot of time with during the summer," Sells said.

As soon as the bales were completed, Sells was off to wash her bucket calf.

"You have to wash him. You have to get him clipped. And you have to work with him," Sells said.

Sells admits she hasn't worked with her bucket calf as much as she did last year, but she still thought she would do well during the bucket calf show.

"He's pretty gentle, but he's one of the biggest ones here, so that's a big problem," Sells said. "Hopefully, he'll do good."

The Trego County Fair continues through the weekend in WaKeeney.