TEMPLE HILL — For some of the girls putting on their brightly-colored, sequined ball gowns for the Barren County Fair beauty contests, the experience was new and exciting; for some nerve-wracking, but for most, nothing new.

Many of the contestants have been competing in pageants since they were infants, and for all of them it is something fun to do that adds glitz and glamour to their summer, whether they win or lose.

“Of course, we’re all here to win, that’s for sure,” said Brianna Hammer, 21, who is in her third summer of pageants. “But I’m a girly-girl so I love this kind of stuff anyway. I enjoy it all.”

Hammer, a Glasgow native, has previously won Miss Farmer’s Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation and is studying biology at Western Kentucky University. She was recently accepted into dental school, but the pageants have never been about boosting her resume or her college applications.

“I just think it’s fun, that’s the way a lot of us [the contestants] are,” Hammer said.

Contestants at Thursdays Pre-Teen, Teen, Miss Barren County Fair and Miss Barren County made competition as stiff as the hairspray made their hair and the heat of the day had nothing on the contest taking place right above them. Friends and relatives helped contestants into their dresses while others held curling irons in locks of hair. Mirrors surrounded the walls of the dressing rooms. Pretty faces with their noses to the glass were applying that final coat of mascara and the last dust of blush. Many supporters were there to help them put on their shoes if they couldn’t bend over in their dresses, others just stood by and watched all the excitement unfold.

For Cassidy Ann Emerson, 14, of Russell Springs, competing is a family affair. Her mother Amber Blakey Helm did pageants, as well as her Aunt Bethany. Her grandmother, Ann Blakey, is used to attending pageants, since she’s seen them now for generations.

“It’s good for [Emerson’s] self-confidence for her to do these and it’s fun traveling to the different counties and seeing all of the pageants,” Blakey said.

Allie Clay is only 19 but she’s been around the circuit, estimating that she’s competed in more than 100 pageants in her lifetime. From Allen County, she is now in cosmetology school and has roommates who are in beauty contests as well. She and her roommates had been texting about the fair all day.

She likes the Barren County Fair because it’s not like some others she’s been to.

“This one is different because it’s more about the fair than the pageant, it’s all just a part of the whole event,” Clay said.

Her mother, who has followed her daughter through her many pageants, enjoys the competition of the contests. Melissa Clay likes to help her daughter with the pageants, but more than that it’s the spirit of the contests that she finds rewarding.

“It builds their confidence, but they also learn to lose and win, they learn that sometimes losing happens,” Melissa Clay said.

For those that have been doing it since they were babies, pageants are now a part of their lives. They are used to the nerves and the frantic energy that surround the dressing room right before they go on stage. It can be a family affair, or an independent passion, but the common theme is the passion surrounding the desire to look beautiful and join in competition. It can also be a bonding experience, like Angie Smith and Monica Shuffitt said it is for them and their sister, Whitney Rogers, who was competing in the Miss Barren County Fair pageant as an 18-year-old.

For some like Rogers, this was a complete change from what they’re used to. Rogers is going to college in Columbia and plans to play basketball there. She was also a softball player, a gymnast and even did karate for a short time in high school. Her sisters also see themselves as athletes, ultimately, not beauty queens.

Kaitlyn Kinslow, a 14-year-old from Glasgow, used to do pageants when she was younger but took a nine-year break, until a friend who also competed in the pageants asked her to start again.

“I am a soccer player,” she said, shifting her dress as her mom, Amy, worked on the back. “I don’t wear this kind of stuff, but basically I’m [competing] because my friend asked me to do it. But the dressing up is a fun part of it.”