One-man team, Elijah ‘The Bull’ Starr, captures haybale rolling title at Fair

Photos by Tom Rivers: Elijah “The Bull” Starr pushes an 800-pound haybale through a course on Saturday night at the Orleans County 4-H Fair. He won the title despite not having a partner to help with the challenge. Jeremy Neal, the event chairman and judge, is in back.

KNOWLESVILLE – In the four years of the haybale rolling challenge at the Orleans County 4-H Fair, Elijah “The Bull” Starr has emerged as the crowd favorite.

The competition invites two-person teams to roll a haybale and push it end over end through an obstacle course. Starr, 35, has been one of the fastest at the event, despite not having a partner.

On Saturday, he won the competition – all by himself. Starr set a new personal record by completing the task in 1 minute, 6 seconds. The judge and event chairman, Jeremy Neal, assesses 5-second penalties if cones are knocked over and if teams go off course. Starr has one five-second penalty giving him a final time of 1:11. That bested the fastest teams that all qualified for the finals on Saturday night.

Starr runs a beef farm in Lyndonville. He is used to mowing heavy bales.

“This is how I feed my cows,” he said.

The competitors in the event also have to throw smaller 50-pound bales over a 6-foot-high beam at the beginning and end of the competition.

Starr also works at Tractor Supply. He said he has a growing reputation for his skills in the haybale rolling competition. The Orleans County 4-H Fair added the haybale rolling in 2021 after the grease pole was discontinued over objections from the fair’s insurance provider.

Fair officials acknowledge the haybale rolling doesn’t draw the huge crowds like the grease pole, but it does provide a fun way to cap off the day’s events at the fair.

The Phonie E’s – Ian Kingdollar, left, and Immanuel Cornell – compete in haybale rolling on Friday night at the fair. Both are 4-H members. They finished second out of seven and didn’t advance to the finals. They tried again at preliminaries on Saturday.

The team of “Kaitlin Squared” – Kaitlynn Basinait and Kaitlin Bennett – made a valiant effort to get the haybale around the course, and then toss the smaller bales over a beam. They got the big bale to the finish line on Friday night.

Team Frog came in first on Friday and advanced to the finals on Saturday. Seth McCracken and Nathanael Hemmerick finished in 1:24 – 1:09 with 15 seconds of violations.

The Double B’s – Becky and Brandon – won the preliminaries on Saturday to advance to the finals where they finished in 1:35, 1:30 plus a 5-second penalty. This team includes Elijah Starr’s brother, Brandon Skellon.