It's been a busy year for Anna Haldeman. The former Manheim Farm Show queen was crowned the Pennsylvania fair queen in January of 2022, and she will wrap up her year of service later this month.

"I have had a wonderful year," Haldeman shared. "I enjoyed having the opportunity to visit so many fairs and meet so many people. Sharing my story and the adventures of my travels is very sweet."

During the year, Haldeman traveled extensively throughout the state, promoting fairs as a showcase of agriculture and tourism and helping to build public understanding and awareness of the importance of fairs. "During the fair season, which is about June to October, I traveled regularly about once a week," she said. "During peak season I would sometimes have five fairs a week to visit. I traveled over 6,000 miles and visited 23 fairs and a dozen other community and state-level events."

When asked to pick some of her favorite memories of the past year, Haldeman said it's hard to choose just a few. "To say the whole year has been great would be very vague, but that is why fairs are so special," she stated. "Each fair has a piece that makes them unique and special, but there is a sense of familiarity when walking around the grounds because of the community that has been created."

Still, she acknowledges that while the familiarity came at each fair, going to new places forced her a bit out of her comfort zone. "The most challenging part of being state fair queen is not always knowing what you are walking into," she commented. "Most fairs were brand new to me, so there were a lot of unknowns." Some of her duties as queen included participating in a celebrity dairy showmanship contest at the Oley Valley Community Fair - which she won - and presenting ribbons to winners of the 2023 Pennsylvania Farm Show apple pie contest.

Haldeman said the past year opened her eyes to everything that goes into staging a successful fair, noting, "I have a renewed appreciation for the hard-working individuals at fairs because I have seen so much of the behind-the-scenes action that is put into the fair weeks."

Although being state fair queen was a full-time job, Haldeman also worked part time this past year for PR Builders in Lititz. After she relinquishes her title, she plans to continue her education at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, where she is studying business administration.

She will crown the 2023 Pennsylvania fair queen on Sunday, Jan. 22, in Hershey, and although she will no longer hold the title, she wants to keep promoting agriculture any way she can. "Agriculture is important to Pennsylvania because it is our No. 1 industry," she said. "It continues to provide hundreds of thousands of jobs for the state and bring in billions of dollars in revenue. It is important to care about agriculture because it affects every single person. We would not be fed or clothed if it were not for the hard-working farmers in Pennsylvania."