Gabriella Zocco takes the crown of the Genesee County Fair during the annual pageant on Sunday. Photo by Steve Ognibene
For nine years, Gabriella Zocco has been inching her way toward the title of Genesee County Fair queen, and she finally earned it late Sunday afternoon during a second round of the annual pageant that included crowning festivities.
The pageant has several categories, including Little Miss for the youngest ones. Then they move up to Miss, Duchess, Princess, Grand Princess and Queen.
“I started as a Little Miss, and I came back every year I could until I was able to be queen. So this is like a huge deal for me,” the 17-year-old said after winners were announced at the yellow entertainment tent. “And I'm really proud of myself for being able to accomplish this. My future goal is, I want to go to college and I want to major in meteorology and have a minor in foreign studies and journalism.”
She would like to be a weather person on the news one day and be that go-to person forecasting the rainy and sunny days and those nasty tropical and winter storms that roll into folks’ hometowns.
She said participating in the fair queen pageant has helped her bond with people and given her skills to use as she heads beyond high school at Our Lady of Mercy.
“I’d say the most rewarding part is finding myself because every year I learned a new thing about myself, and I learned about other people too, and how to really connect with people through the pageant,” she said. “Because, especially with the speech portion, you have to get up in front of a lot of people. You have to show confidence and leadership.
"And you can’t be afraid to show yourself and you can’t be afraid to talk and share your own opinions, even though other people might disagree," she said. "So I think the most rewarding part is finding myself and making new friends and connections.”
Her mom, Verginia Zocco, the pageant director, said the first portion of the pageant was bittersweet because Gabriella would be aging out since she had already surpassed and won all of the previous categories.
On the other hand, the sweet spot was being able to talk about the earth and women’s health, two of Gabriella’s favorite topics, while having friends and family there to support her.
Remaining crowns for the Royal Court 2024 went to:
Corrine Rhoads performing during the talent portion of the Genesee County Fair Queen competition. Photo by Howard Owens.
It didn’t take long for the action to begin at Genesee County fairgrounds Friday evening, as the six-horse hitch teams made their way to the horse arena and nine young ladies prepared to take the main stage one by one for the first half of the fair queen pageant.
“Tonight, after the speeches, we are focusing on women’s health,” pageant director Virginia Zocco said before the event began. “There will be a discussion on the importance of eating clean food. We are hosting a demonstration on cheese making, drying fresh herbs, and milling your own flour, presented by Gabriella Zocco and Lyza Baker. Immediately after, the contestants will be performing their lovely talents.”
This is Zocco’s fourth year as pageant director, and she gives the contestants a packet with rules, including that they need to select a topic for their presentations.
There was a focus on clean eating from the earth this year. Lyza Baker, a Little Miss contestant, and Gabriella Zocco, a contestant for Fair Queen, teamed up, given their mutual interests of love for the earth and a concern for women’s health, said Zocco, who happens to be Gabriella’s mom.
“She loves the pageant; she has done it since 2015. So for her, it was kind of bittersweet tonight because she knows this will be, once you’re queen, you’re kind of aged out,” Zocco said. “But now it's nice to see the other girls come up. The one thing I love about doing the pageant every year is I get to see the girls grow, and I watch them mature and get more confidence, and I watch their love of farming and nature.”
Lyza Jean Baker, 7, is a Little Miss contestant from Basom, where her family raises many animals. She is homeschooled and going into second grade, with this being her third pageant. Lyza is an active 4-H member and will be showing her bunny Ophelia at the fair. Other hobbies are gardening, camping and dance, and this year she is trying out for the Rochester City Ballet performance of The Nutcracker.
Gabriella Zocco, 17, of Le Roy, attends Our Lady of Mercy School for Young Women, where she will be entering her senior year this fall. She maintains a 4.5 grade point average while also being the historian in National Honor Society and a member of the Leadership Distinction Program. Her other activities include founding and acting president of Book Club, co-founder and vice president of Lorax Club, Red Cross Club, Sunshine Club, Merceds Articles, and Mercy Service. She has received awards for her balance of leadership, work, service, academics and clubs, and they include Issues of Morality, U.S. History and Environmental Health, the Rachel Carson Healthy Planet Award from Chatham University and the Youth Leadership Recognition Award. Gabriella is captain of the Mercy Dance Competition Team; she volunteers to care for the earth, animals and people while also enjoying gardening, traveling, and playing the piano and clarinet.
Zocco has volunteered at the fair and was put into the director's position after the last one moved on, she said.
“She got a different position, and it left a pageant director open, and she knows I'm a teacher, and I have experience working with kids and doing different activities,” she said. “So I took on this role because I love what the Genesee County Fair does for the community, and bringing everybody together and having that shared experience. So I really do love continuing the pageant legacy.”
Friday’s pageant included introductions, speeches, and a talent portion. The topics for the speeches can vary according to what the contestants find interesting and important.
“We’re pretty open to what the girls want. And this year, one of our contestants wanted to give a speech on women’s health and the earth, connecting those two together and the importance of clean eating and tying that into our farmers,” Zocco said. “When I give the girls topics to do on agriculture, it’s really open to interpretation. So the girls can take it a different way if they’d like to.”
The talent portion featured “a good range of talents,” she said. “It’s a great variety for the community to see. We had dancing, singing, storytelling, acrobatics,” she said. “Sunday we usually get more people, the tent usually overflows when we crown the contestants.”
The second half of the pageant is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday at the Main Stage, under the big yellow tent. It is there and then when the final crowning will occur.
Remaining contestants include:
Also vying for Little Miss is Kali Martino, who is also 7 and moving into second grade at Pembroke Primary School. She lives in Batavia with her family with her family and two puppies and has taken dance classes since she was just 2, including acro, ballet, tap, cheer, and hip-hop. Her favorite sports are soccer, swimming, softball and cheerleading, and she’s very active in her church. Kali’s hobbies are trampoline jumping, dance parties with her siblings, swimming, riding her bike, traveling and gardening. Kali wants to be a teacher and a doctor once she grows up because she wants to help children learn and feel better, she says.
Two contestants for the Miss category: 10-year-olds Eleanor Hudson and Carly Hanel. Eleanor lives with her parents and brother in Alabama and is a 4-H Goat Club member, raising Nigerian award dairy goats. She can’t wait until this fall to be in Future Farmers of America at Oakfield-Alabama Central School, she says. She loves to dance and has been dancing for seven years, currently taking jazz, tap, and pre-pointe ballet classes. Ellie, as she’s called, plays soccer, and participates in Run Club, Page Turners, chorus and plays the tenor saxophone in her school’s band. She attends church, loves musicals, and wants to be an agriculture teacher.
Carly lives with her mom and older sister, loves to sing and draw. This is her second year in th pageant, and she enjoys singing karaoke and being part of her school musicals. She also participated in the Kids Club at her school. Her favorite princess is Cinderella, and she hopes to go to Disney Land one day. Elephants are her favorite animal and aqua green her favorite color.
Duchess contestant Isabella Redden, 12, is from East Pembroke, where she lives with her mom, stepdad and family dog, Dozer. She has a love for swimming, crafts, dance — senior across and jazz — French bulldogs, the piano, reading, and public speaking. Since the age of 5, she has had a desire to contribute to her local fire company and other organizations by helping with activities and events by collecting donations of food, household needs and blankets for the local food pantry. Known as Bella, her future plans are to go into the field of education and musical theater, and she’s waiting to be accepted into the Genesee Community College homeschool accelerated college enrollment program this fall.
Cassandra Judge, 14, a high honor roll student who just completed eighth grade at Akron Middle School, is a candidate for the Princess category. Her academic diligence earned her the Presidential Gold Award, and she received the Mission Mover Award from the school’s Board of Education for initiating and raising all the funds for inclusion projects in her school. She is a member of student government, concert, jazz and marching bands, chorus, cheerleading, Girl Scouts, and a competitive dancer on the Diamond Dance Team for Batavia Muckdogs.
Grand Princess contestant Sara Keller is 15 and lives with her mom in Darien, attending 10th grade this fall at Alexander Central School. Sara has been a dancer since 2016. She also loves toeing and has been part of her school chorus and the school’s swim team. She participates in church activities, attends youth group, and enjoys traveling — having visited seven countries and 19 states. For several years, she has helped her grandpa raise goats, chickens and pigs on his small farm.
Corrine Rhoads, the second Grand Princess contestant, is 14 and lives in Le Roy with her family, participating in the 4-H programs of Family Consumer Science, Fur and Feather, Dog and Raptor clubs. She likes to play ultimate frisbee and has competed in the state and national championships, spends a lot of tie hanging out with her teammates, and hiking, going to church and writing poetry. She has spent the last four years performing in the circus and enjoys working with her partner in ground acrobatics, the Lyra and recently began the Chinese pole. Corinne plans to continue her education at GCC this fall and would like to pursue a career in criminal justice and psychology.
Corrine Rhoads Photo by Howard Owens
Cassandra Judge Photo by Howard Owens.
Sara Keller Photo by Howard Owens.
Kali Martino Photo by Howard Owens.
Lyza Baker Photo by Howard Owens.
Gabriella Zocco, with the assistance of Lyza Baker, gives a talk and demonstration on the importance of clean eating while making cheese. Photo by Howard Owens.
Liza Baker razzle-dazzles with flashy pompoms during the talent portion of the Genesee County Fair queen pageant Sunday in Batavia. Photo by Howard Owens.
When a dozen girls aged 6 to 17 talked about agriculture and farming Sunday, followed by quickly changing out of their dresses and heels and into colorful dance outfits, it was clear it was time for the 2023 fair queen pageant at Genesee fairgrounds.
Competitors in varying age categories reviewed facts about beets, showed off their rabbits, read essays about the importance of agriculture and how it has affected their lives and the community, performed jazz, ballet, acrobatics, read a story, led a cheer, and some -- like Katherine Ewert of Batavia -- took a chance for the first time.
“I guess I really just wanted to do it this year, I kind of just felt like it. I saw the ad, and it seemed like a good idea. And I mostly just wanted to put my experience with agriculture to use, and the fair, and how much it's impacted me. And I wanted to maybe inspire some people to start being more involved in 4-H and the fair in general, so that way, agriculture can grow even more,” the 17-year-old said, sharing what she’s learned from working with horses in 4-H. “I’d say it's taught me a lot about hard work and what's really important in life and just how to be a good person and how to inspire change in others.”
Contestants with a full range of essays, talents and personalities took to the stage over the course of two hours in front of an enthusiastic audience. The yellow and white striped entertainment tent was filled with spectators during this first day of a two-round competition.
Girls first demonstrated their speaking abilities, followed by the talent portion, which was a more lively, musical part of the event on yet another very warm day at the fair. The aroma of nearby kettle corn blew into the tent area with occasional compassionate breezes as audience members clapped and cheered for their favorite queen contenders.
Ewert said that she wasn’t so taken with the title of queen — “it doesn’t mean a ton to me” — as what it would mean to achieve it.
“But it's nice to accomplish something if I do win I mean, I know Panorea, she's an amazing contestant. And if she won, she deserves it,” Ewert said. “But I guess it just means that I touched somebody with the most features and that I inspired someone. I think I would want some little girl who was like me to walk away and be like, I want to do that. I want to be involved in the community and be involved with agriculture.”
This is the second time in the pageant for Panorea Tsoukalos, 16. She has what she referred to as her family “farm” at home, a menagerie of dogs and cats. Suffice it to say she loves animals, though she’s not in 4-H.
The Batavia contestant also chose to share about agriculture in Genesee County, and her talent was dancing. Perhaps a bit shy at first, being up on stage is helping with that, she said.
“I feel like I get more confidence just talking in front of people,” she said.
Eleanor “Ellie” Hudson, 9, was one of the few contestants paper free on stage. She began earlier this month to memorize her essay and recited it without the use of notes. Wearing a turquoise and white checked dress and glittery silver Maryjanes, Ellie is not shy about her goals and pursuits in the ag business.
“I said to my mom when I grow up, I want goats,” she said. “We have 11 to 12 goats, and I will name every single one of them for you. My favorite one is Lovey, she had a 7 percent chance of living. We kept her in my mom’s room.”
Ellie is kind of like a speech machine, she seems to know exactly what she wants to say, and she just keeps talking in matter-of-fact form. A resident of Alabama, her precociousness and charm has not gone unnoticed, earning her a spot on regional TV twice so far, she said.
Still, she had a tinge of uncertainty heading up to the stage, she said.
"I was a little nervous. But once I started doing it, I was feeling great,” she said, heading for the restroom to change into her jazz costume. “My nana was giving me a hug.”
Monday is the finale, after introductions and bios of each contestant and questions from the judges and the pageant host. It’s likely to be a tough choice for queen in the end, given the line-up of girls, Pageant Director Verginia Zocco said.
“Because this year for some reason, the girls have gone above and beyond. I don't know if you were listening to some of the speeches, but we got like, information on history this year. We got information on local farms this year. How actually the Genesee County Fair impacts their lives. It has just been stunning this year,” Zocco said. “It seems like girls are really giving 110 percent to the pageant. I don't know what it is. But it must really be just taking shape, I guess. Like, I don't know how to explain it. But it's just, like this year, I saw during the fair girls up on stage practicing for their talent yesterday before the pageant even started. Everyone has just been really serious about it. And I think taking pride in it.
“You know, it's been amazing this year. And I wonder if it's because we have more girls, that they're talking to each other, getting ideas from each other, making more friendships with each other,” she said. “Because last year, we only had like seven girls; this year, we’re up to 12. And it was really cool because one of the girls actually pulled the tractor, put on her dress, and she was running over to the pageant. Yeah. So girl, I'm like, ‘you're my kind of princess,’ pull your tractor and then you put on a gown.”
The fair queen pageant and crowning runs from 6 to 9 p.m. on Monday in the entertainment tent.
Yet another fine day at the Genesee County Fair. Fairgoers strolled lazily under blue skies, dotted with white billowing clouds, as the scent of fried dough and sausage hung in the air, enticing passersby to just try a little taste.
The day’s events included Draft Horse Show Hitch Classes, Swine Breeds and Showmanship, musical entertainment by Monster Johnson, and rounding out the day - the Fair Queen crowning of winner Courtney Jones.
The 18-year-old Batavia native is a recent graduate of Batavia High School and a Rustic Riders Horse Club member. Jones will be attending Niagara University this fall where her course study includes early childhood and early childhood education.
The runner-up was Heather Dries.
Winners in the pageant’s other categories included:
