Obituary
In the care of Solemn OaksNadine Colquitt, 88, of Grant, died Monday, September 14, 2026, at home surrounded by her family, ten days after the close of the Newaygo County Fair, which she had run some part of for forty-one years.
She was born Nadine Ruth Pyle on August 14, 1938, in Grant, on the farm her grandfather cleared, and she never lived more than four miles from it. She married Ellis Colquitt in 1958, and together they milked, calved, hayed, and raised four children who could all drive a tractor before they could drive a car.
The fair was hers. She started as a 4-H mother in 1985 and never got loose of it — swine barn, then livestock superintendent, then the small-animal show, then the record books, which she kept in a hand so precise that the county still uses her ledgers as the example. She judged fair, she judged hard, and she told a crying twelve-year-old the truth about her rabbit's condition in a way that made the child a better showman by the following August.
Hundreds of children in this county learned from Nadine that an animal is a responsibility before it is a ribbon. Dozens of them are farmers now. Several of them judge.
She kept a freezer of pie dough, an opinion about every township road, and a standing appointment with her sister every Wednesday for fifty years. Services are Friday. The family asks that anyone who ever showed under her come and say so.
She is survived by her children, Dennis (Marla) Colquitt of Grant, Beth (Ron) Steketee of Fremont, Gary Colquitt of Grant, and Julie Ann Hoeksema of Cedar Springs; fourteen grandchildren; nineteen great-grandchildren; and her sister, Marilyn Pyle of Grant.
She was preceded in death by her husband of sixty-two years, Ellis; her parents; and her brother, Lyle Pyle.