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Pageant contestant wins Fair's Strongwoman event
Lucky for Katy Mae Barnes, the Miss Fauquier County Fair pageant was held Wednesday.
Had it been two days later, the pageant runner-up would have been in no shape to compete.
On Friday, Barnes' blond hair was damp with sweat and pulled back in a ponytail. The back of her blue jeans was smeared with mud and her purple and white thin-strap tank top was dusty, not to mention her hands and boots.
It turns out winning the Strongwoman Contest is a dirty undertaking. That suits Barnes just fine, though.
"This fits my boots more than the [pageant]," the 18-year-old said. "I'm a girl of many phases. I can do both. And any girl can."
Barnes is no stranger to the physical strain of a strongwoman competition. On her family's Remington farm, she tosses hail bails and breaks colts, among other things.
In fact, she said the pageant was actually more challenging than the tractor pull, log carry or tire flip that composed the Strongwoman Contest.
"You have to talk and everybody's waiting for you to mess up. I kind of choked on my speech," Barnes said. "So it was more stressful doing that pageant.
"But this was hard too."
A 2008 Liberty High graduate who will attend Lord Fairfax Community College in the fall, Barns was one of four entries in Friday's Strongwoman Contest. She hadn't planned on competing, but her mother volunteered her upon arriving.
"I thought just to laugh at me," Barnes said. "I didn't even know they had it for women."
She hopes the presence of a Strongwoman Division remains a little-known fact, too, especially among the pageant crowd...
See the Wednesday print edition of the Fauquier Times-Democrat for the complete story.
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