A cow beauty pageant honors rural Pennsylvania’s shrinking dairy industry

TOWANDA, Pa. — Her full name was Cashells Jry Shakira-Red-ET — Shakira to keep it simple — and like her namesake, the big red and white Holstein had 6-foot hips that didn’t lie as she hoofed down Main Street.

Shakira is a showgirl accustomed to winning, one of the few cows that allowed judges to place a floral crown on her head at the Bradford County dairy cow beauty pageant in Towanda on June 20, about 100 years after their last one.

“The most beautiful dairy cow in Bradford County, folks,” said Duane Naugle, Bradford County’s community planner and the day’s emcee.

Other winners were Skylar, a Lineback heifer, and Camo, a doe-eyed Brown Swiss calf.

“They’re my favorite breed. They’re just so dopey and docile,” Miranda Neville, a dairy farmer out of Warren Center, said of Camo. “I mean, just look at her.”

Bradford County, population 59,600, sits about 175 miles northwest of Philadelphia in North Central Pennsylvania. County officials said they found an old, black-and-white photo of a similar beauty pageant from 1926 in the county courthouse recently.

The purpose of that contest a century ago, organizers said, was to highlight the county’s bustling dairy industry.

“Getting down to the main idea, it may be stated that the Chamber of Commerce has seized upon this opportunity of giving recognition to the basic industry of Bradford County — dairying,” The Daily Review newspaper wrote in 1926.

Officials figured that old photo was a sign, a good-enough reason to get cows on Main Street as part of the county’s ongoing celebration of America’s 250th. There was also free ice cream, a cow milking contest, and other livestock to pet.

A lot has changed in dairy over the decades, as dairy farms have shuttered by the thousands, nationwide. In 2025, the USDA reported 23,609 dairy farms across the country, a 70% decrease in just 20 years.

Earlier this year, The Inquirer chronicled the plight of a longtime dairy farm in New Jersey’s most rural county. Owners there were denied a variance to install solar panels and stopped milking shortly after.

“We have been losing money for the last 10 years,” a young farmer there told The Inquirer.

Henry Farley, the mayor of Sayre, Bradford County, said there were 41,311 dairy cows in the county in 1920. That number is down to 10,059 dairy cows today, he said.

“We remain an agricultural county, and dairy is still a big part of it,” he said. “This is still rural America, and this was a great way to showcase that.”

Top employers in Bradford County include medical facilities, a mill, Walmart, and Cargill, a beef-processing plant in Wyalusing, where most major league baseballs are made from dairy cow hides.

Many of the farmers in Towanda on June 20 owned small farms, which are the hardest to keep afloat. Most of the owners couldn’t depend on dairy as a full-time income and worked other jobs as a result.

Many dairy farms in Bradford County have transitioned to beef, poultry, or swine.

“Well, it’s pretty simple. Dairy prices are down, and beef is up,” said dairy farmer McKenzie Slater.

Neville said she still milks 60 cows at her dairy, Vin-Deb Farms, but it’s not her only source of income. She also works for Bradford County’s conservation district.

“We all have full-time jobs, too, along with farming,” Neville said. “That’s normal around here.”

Even Shakira, the showgirl, still milks, producing more than 11 gallons per day. She’s just preened and washed a bit more. Her udders hung low on Main Street.

“She’s milking pretty heavy right now,” said owner Hannah Watson, of Columbia Crossroads, Bradford County. “It’s whole milk, straight from the cow.”