{"id":30138,"date":"2025-10-13T12:42:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=30138"},"modified":"2025-10-13T12:42:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:42:48","slug":"henning-birch-tops-in-highland-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/13\/henning-birch-tops-in-highland-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Henning, Birch tops in Highland Games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabby Birch and Neil Henning took top honors in the Decatur Chamber’s 2025 Highland Games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ninth annual event, held recently in Riverside Park north of Riverside Center, enjoyed ideal weather, which helped spur a sizable turnout of family, friends and spectators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Birch in the women’s division was Kristi Rolston, with Cheryl Lengerich third. Sara Mesing placed fourth and Ashley Beard was fifth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the men’s side, Isaac Birch (Gabby’s brother) was second and John Shifferly finished third. Jamison Rumple and Trenton Hoffman were fourth and fifth, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henning and Birch were 1-2 last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabby Birch, the ’23 winner and ’24 runnerup, took first places in four of five events in the women’s division: stone, hammer, height and bags; she was 12th in distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rolston was second in stone, fourth in distance, hammer, height and bags. Lengerich was second in distance and bags, third in height, fifth in stone and sixth in hammer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henning, repeating as champion, placed first or second in all five men’s events: tops in distance and hammer, second in stone, height and caber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Isaac Birch was first in stone and caber, second in distamnce and hammer, and fourth in height.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifferly was tops in height , third in distance, fourth in stone and hammer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Gabby Birch and Neil Henning took top honors in the Decatur Chamber’s 2025 Highland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-30138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-community"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Gabby-wins.jpg?fit=1006%2C1297&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30142,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30138\/revisions\/30142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}