Fair to build on positives following soggy weekend

by Peter Jakey-Managing Editor

Short of final figures from the recently completed County Fair in Millersburg, fair board president Rachel Goodstein said the number of entries and variety has improved.

“Two years ago, we started reinventing the county fair,” said Goodstein, who serves as media spokeswoman. “We moved the fair to the end of summer…you have all the vegetables that come in. Clearly, there were more flowers. We have more entries.

 

“After this weekend, what we’ve realized and what we’ll work on for next year is to extend the hours that exhibits come in because they are not long enough, given the size of the county.”

Goodstein said one of the entries was entered as the “tallest sweet corn stalk. I understand it generated a lot of conversation at some coffee clutches whether sweet corn could grow that high. That’s a good thing when people are talking about the county fair afterward. Something they saw or did.”

There also were more vendors that sent in money to set up booths, but not all of them showed up because of the heavy rains and extreme weather conditions.

Goodstein was pleased with the variety. “We had a brick-and-mortar store from Posen. We had a church set up a booth. MSU (Michigan State University) Extension set up a booth,” she said. “It makes it easier to say ‘This works.’ This is what we are building.” They were up to 15 booths interested in setting up, until it rained.

Attendance figures had not been tabulated as of late Tuesday.

“Rain was not our friend,” said Goodstein. “It kept attendance lower than we wanted.”

The heavy rains canceled Friday’s outdoor movie and Saturday’s fairgrounds performance of the Darwin Project. The band did put on its scheduled appearance at Three Cedars Restaurant and Clubhouse.

There were tornado warnings for counties south of Presque

Isle County.Goodstein said the mud bog participants enjoyed the rain. “They had a good-sized crowd and the rain did not seem to bother them,” she added. Deb Schuiteman of Rogers City won the cash raffle; however, the amount won has not been made available because they did not sell 1,000 tickets. It will now be treated like a 50/50 drawing. Rick Dowker was the feature winner of Sunday’s bump-run, while Travis Merchant won the dash for cash. Sammy Freel took the powder puff trophy.

“We’ll have more data in the future,” said Goodstein. “Whether it is in an ad to thank and acknowledge people.”

The fair was conducted in conjunction with the long-standing Millersburg homecoming.