The air inside the Muskingum County Fair show barn was thick with August heat and the tension of the grand champion market hog drive. Seth Downing stood close to Aaron Tysinger’s towering 6-foot-8 frame, narrating what was happening in the ring as Aaron’s 12-year-old daughter, Lynnox, drove her 248-lb. crossbred barrow, Uno.
“What do you think? What do you think?” Aaron whispered, straining to track the outline of his daughter. Aaron’s vision had long deteriorated into dark, spiderwebbed tunnel vision due to a degenerative eye condition.
The people standing ringside quieted as the judge reached for the microphone and began talking the class. Uno wasn’t overly extreme in any area, but he was a complete and problem-free barrow presented flawlessly.
Downing nudged Aaron hard in the ribs. “I think we got this.”
Seconds later, the judge walked across the ring and extended his hand to congratulate Lynnox for exhibiting the Grand Champion Market Hog.
Lynnox Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Lynnox Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Lynnox Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Lynnox Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Lynnox Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Lynnox Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Lynnox Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
All Aaron could think about in that moment was how excited her brother Levi would have been for his sister. He could picture Levi standing at the gate with a grin saying, “It’s about damn time.”
The Striking Parallels
Five years and one day earlier, Levi had walked out of that exact same ring with his own grand champion barrow. As the banner was handed to Lynnox, the echoes between the two drives were impossible to ignore.
Both siblings had reached the pinnacle in their fourth year of 4-H, and both did it driving 248-pound barrows that were first named Division 2 champions. Both pigs carried names inspired by card games—Levi with Spade, Lynnox with Uno. When the family had pulled their trailer onto the fairgrounds earlier that week, Lynnox was assigned Pen 17, Levi’s favorite number. Even the skies seemed to remember: Levi’s 2021 backdrop photo had been framed by torrential downpours; in 2026, floodwaters soaked fair week once again.
When sale day arrived, the livestock community showed up in force. Lynnox broke Levi’s county record of $21.50 per pound, hammering down at $30.00.
“It still gives me goosebumps to talk about it,” Downing says. “It put a lot of stuff in perspective for me when things lined up like that. I don’t know how to describe it, but we knew Levi was with us in the ring when Lynnox won. It’s still wild in my mind how it all shook out.”
His Dad’s Eyes
To understand why that banner carried such weight, you have to understand the boy who carved the path.
When Levi and Lynnox were young, Aaron was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that gradually stole his peripheral vision. Levi, only a boy himself, naturally stepped in to become his father’s eyes.
Wherever Aaron went—down crowded show barn aisles, across wash racks or into public restrooms—Levi walked beside him, Aaron’s hand resting steadily on the boy’s shoulder. Levi mastered the rhythm so well that whenever Aaron accidentally stepped on the back of his heel, Levi could slide his shoe back on mid-stride without stopping his dad’s momentum.
In the show barn, the pair worked like a well-oiled machine.
“Dad, what did you do today?” Levi would tease when he came home after school. “Pen four looks spotless, but pen one—did you forget what you were doing?” Then, without a word of complaint, Levi would grab the scoop shovel and finish the work himself.
Levi was built differently, his mother Amber says. Like most boys his age, he hated cleaning his bedroom. He would not, however, let a job outside go unfinished. He helped his grandfather wire electrical systems, mowed his family’s lawn, and could back a 33-foot livestock trailer into a tight spot better than seasoned truck drivers.
“Having a father who can’t see well makes a young man grow up fast,” says Downing, who sold show pigs to the family and became a second father figure to Levi. “Levi’s love for what he did was huge. He wanted to win, but he never minded losing because he just loved the pigs. Regardless of where he placed, he’d look at me and ask, ‘What can I do better?’”
That’s a question Downing wishes he could hear one more time.
March 2, 2023
As soon as Levi got home from school on March 2, 2023, he went straight to the barn and finished his chores. He loaded his fishing pole into the family’s side-by-side and headed down the hill toward the creek.
He cranked up some music and sang as he drove down the path to the creek. At the bottom of the hill, the side-by-side’s tires caught a concrete slab and struck loose gravel. The vehicle overcorrected and flipped on its side.
Levi was pinned underneath, sustaining severe trauma to his head and chest. Despite the frantic efforts of first responders and 25 medical personnel in the trauma bay, he could not be revived.
The empty drive home was crushing, but opening the barn door without him proved even harder. Lynnox, just 9 years old at the time, gently took her father by the hand and led him out to feed the two gilts waiting in their pens. Amber couldn’t bring herself to walk inside.
That night, the livestock community wrapped around the grieving family. They coordinated a nationwide benefit auction on Showpig.com to ensure funeral expenses and lost time from work wouldn’t crush the family. Downing even went with Aaron and Amber to help pick out Levi’s burial plot.
Not long after the funeral, Levi’s English teacher shared an essay the boy had written months earlier about his faith: “Most people do not think too much about their religion at such a young age, but I do... I now live by John 13:7.”
“You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
Amber later had the verse tattooed on her arm – but she doubted she would ever understand.
“For Bub” and Beyond
In the weeks after the accident, the Tysingers faced a choice: close the barn doors or keep going. Amber asked Lynnox what she wanted to do. Lynnox didn’t hesitate: “I want to show for Bub.”
Amber gave her daughter a piece of advice that would define her future showing pigs. She said, “You can show for Bub, Lynnox. But you need to show for yourself, too.”
Later that spring after Levi’s accident, Lynnox got back into the show ring and won her first showmanship buckle. When the buckle finally arrived in the mail, she sprinted clear up their steep gravel driveway to show her parents, grinning through tears.
Since Levi’s death, the barn has become the family’s place of healing.
When missing her brother feels unbearable, Lynnox goes to the walk-in door near the spot where she and Levi once pressed their handprints into the wet concrete. Placing her palms inside their prints, she measures how much she has grown and remembers the hours they spent working together in the barn.
“Levi taught me a lot about pigs and agriculture, but I have packed in a lot more since then,” she says. “If he wouldn’t have helped me, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”
Downing believes Lynnox is more motivated than ever when it comes to working with her pigs because she knows Levi is always watching.
“Lynnox had it a little easier back then because she was younger and Levi liked to do those things,” he says. “She’s more motivated now because she knows Levi is always with her and she doesn’t want to disappoint him. I’m not sure she’s ever going to say that, but I can tell by the way she has changed from then to now.”
Just like he was tough on Levi, Downing says he’s tough on Lynnox.
“When Levi was there, she leaned on him a lot – now the work is up to her,” he says. “Amber’s working and Lynnox is now the eyes for her father in the barn. And like her brother, this means she’s had to grow up a little faster than most kids do. But I believe it’s shaped her into a better version of herself.”
The Road Ahead
Levi’s presence remains tangible on every trip down the highway. His hat hangs in a family friend’s trailer; an orange cooler he won in 2020 still goes to every show; and a small urn of his ashes rides in the truck to every jackpot, tucked discreetly into backdrop photos. Outside the Muskingum County hog barn, a shade tree planted in his memory stands as a reminder of the boy who once gave away all the family’s face brushes so younger exhibitors would have one to take home.
“It always makes me smile to see his tree,” Aaron says. “Levi was the kind of kid who always wanted to make people feel wanted and loved. Seeing his tree reminds me to do the same.”
Levi Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Levi Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Levi Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Levi Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Levi Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Levi Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Levi Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
Levi Tysinger
Provided by Amber Tysinger
“I don’t think we will ever understand what we lost long-term in the show pig industry when we lost Levi. He was always happy, always smiling. I hope more people can genuinely live like Levi.”
The family leaned hard on that final rule in the spring of 2026, when the government pulled Aaron’s disability check for a few months. Money grew dangerously tight, and for a time, the show season hung in the balance. Seeing their struggle, friends packed extra food and coolers on show weekends to ensure the Tysingers never went without.
“That’s when the ‘keep driving’ rule reminded us that we can all lay down – everybody has those moments,” Amber says. “We could have said, ‘Forget it, we’re not going to do anything this year.’ But if Levi’s death has taught us anything, it’s that you’ve got to keep moving on and moving forward.”
They’ve worked to teach Lynnox that you get through the hard times one moment – or class – at a time.
“You can’t win county fair without winning your class,” Amber explains. “Then, you’ve got to win your division. Life is about keeping that focus and driving forward.”
No Quit in Tysinger
Despite a debilitating eye disease resulting in near blindness, unpredictable financial strains and the devastating loss of their 13-year-old son, the Tysinger family refuses to quit.
“Right after the accident, Seth asked me how I kept going and told me not to quit,” Aaron says. “I told him, ‘I never have.’ Even with my eyesight deteriorating, I’ve vowed to myself and my family that I would never quit even though some days I fumble around.’”
Aaron will never forget what Downing asked him next. “Spell your last name,” Downing said before reminding Aaron there was no “quit” in Tysinger.
“No matter how far down you think you are,” Aaron says, “you’re never out.”
While he and Amber strive to remember this, it’s Lynnox who carries Levi’s legacy into the ring every time she picks up a whip. She honors her brother not by looking back, but by working harder every single day.
Today, two nearly identical grand champion banners hang side by side in the Tysinger home—five years and one day apart.
“I hope people know how hard Levi worked,” Lynnox says. “That’s the mindset he gave me. We all have tough days, but he taught me that it’s all about coming back the next time ready to win.”
