State farm show success
CONNOQUENESSING TWP — The numbers all lined up for what was clearly a good start to the new year for sheep raisers Harold and Connie Dunn, 201 Whipporwill Road.
Connie Dunn won the Grand Champion Fleece prize at the 2020 Pennsylvania Farm Show earlier this month.
Her sheep's wool was praised for its color, luster and its crimp that allows the wool to mesh together.
And as their daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren organized themselves to show their animals, the Dunns realized they had a contingent of 20 people exhibiting 20 sheep.
And to cap it off, Connie Dunn was awarded her Grand Champion ribbon on Jan. 9, her birthday.
The Dunns also captured Champion Merino Ram, Champion Merino Ewe, Reserve Champion Merino Ewe, Premier Merino Exhibitor and Premier Merino Breeder.
The Dunns' granddaughter, Rylee Colteryahn won Reserve Champion Suffolk Ewe and their grandson, Jack Meiser, won Reserve Champion Texel Ram.
“For us the most significant accomplishment is the premier breeder award,” said Connie Dunn. “This award is given to the exhibitor whose sheep have been bred, born and raised on their own farm, not purchased from other breeders.”
Harold Dunn said that while he and his wife have been on the farm since 1980, the farm's first deed dates to 1827.
“We're the seventh generation. There's always been a Dunn or a Raisely on the land,” said the retired Laurel School District administrator.Sheep raising has been a family tradition for almost as long.“There has been sheep on this farm as far back as we can determine,” he said, adding these days he and his wife raise 25 Merino sheep for their wool and 145 Texel sheep for their meat.In fact, the Dunns consider their trip to the farm show to be a minivacation before the real work begins.Connie Dunn, a chaplain for the VNA hospice, said the families stayed at a hotel with a swimming pool during the farm show.She said, “We make a little vacation out of it. It's a little break before lambing season gets under way.”Dunn said he expects to have 225 lambs born in the next 35 days. Then begins the feverish interval to get them fattened up before Easter.“They grow really quick, which is one of the traits of the Texel breed,” he said.When the lambs reach 50 to 60 pounds they are sold in Queens, N.Y., for Orthodox Easter dinners.Sheep have always been part of the Dunns' lives.As a matter of fact, you might say sheep are what brought Connie and Harold together.Connie Dunn said she was picking apples on her cousin's farm when she met her future husband.He said, “I was there shearing sheep for a cousin when she (Connie) climbed up into a tree too high and made her cousin nervous.”
The cousin asked Dunn to hold the ladder for Connie until she could climb down and that's how the two met. They were 16. Two years later, they married.Later, Connie Dunn was in Northern Ireland with their four children for a year while she attended Queen's University studying theology and religion.Dunn used to travel to visit her, raising the money for airfare by selling a cow.“A round-trip ticket cost two cows,” he said. “When I got back the last time, we had no cows left.”While visiting his family in Northern Ireland, Dunn became aware of the Texel breed and decided to raise the sheep on his farm.And that's something he plans to continue doing.“It's a way of shaking hands with past generations,” he said of raising sheep. “It's linking those generations.”His wife said the family plans to be back at the farm show next year, not only to defend her fleece title, she said but for the benefit of her grandchildren.“I think showing sheep teaches us all how to win and lose,” she said. “We are just having fun, celebrating this year's wins.”
Twenty members of the Connie and Harold Dunn Sr. family showed 20 sheep at the 2020 Pennsylvania Farm Show:Connie and Harold DunnChildren, in-laws and grandchildren: Kati, Ryan, Rylee, Raislee and River Colteryahn; Meghann, Scott, Jack, Henry, Willem and Morgann Meiser; and Rebekah, Derek, Madalyn, Hannah and Braden DavisNieces: Michele DiPippa and Amy Metrick.And Connie Dunn said their son and his family — Harold Dunn Jr., Lynsey and Murphy — made their trip possible by staying home and caring for the 150 sheep that didn’t get to travel to the farm show.
