By: Timothy Kays
The razor thin line between holding a typical county fair and COVID-19 safety protocols was erased on the afternoon of July 28, as Governor Mike DeWine made a tough announcement via Twitter. “I’ve made the difficult decision to limit all fairs to junior fair events only (livestock competitions and other 4-H and FFA competitions for kids and teens) starting on or after Friday, July 31,” he said.
With that order, the plans to put on some kind of fair this year in Williams and Fulton Counties came to a screeching halt, and contingency plans are being drawn up to at least maintain the junior fair events. Stripped down in the name of COVID safety, both fair boards are putting together junior fair events for the kids in their counties.
“Our order goes into effect on the 31st, so that’s pretty close in time,” Governor DeWine said in his press briefing on July 28. “Fairs that are already taking place, I felt it would be very, very disruptive to go in there and tell them that they have to change their fair in the middle of the fair. I think it’s very difficult. There’s some sense of fairness. It’s going to be tough enough to do that to county fairs that are going to start this weekend, but we felt it was urgent enough, important enough to do that.”
Prior to closing, Governor DeWine said, “I’m going to end with a plea to everybody in the 10 counties that are out there where fairs are going on now. Please be careful. Please wear a mask. I’ll say to the members of the fair boards, please follow the guidelines that we’ve already given you in regard to fairs, and then add to that guideline, of course, the state order in regard to wearing masks.”
“We want your fair to be a safe as that fair can be. You are ultimately responsible for your fair, so please keep people safe. And to the local health departments, I will say the same thing…you are ultimately responsible as well.”
DeWine’s admonition, “You are ultimately responsible for your fair, so please keep people safe,” was not lost on the fair boards of Williams and Fulton Counties. “We’re having a junior fair only,” said Fulton County Board President Dennis Wyse of a decision reached back in June.
“Animals will come in on the day they’re going to show, and they’ll be trailered off that evening. So there’ll be a species every day through Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, we’ll still have our small animal sale and Thursday, the large animal sale and that’s going to be moved from the Sale Arena to the Spangler Arena.”
“There won’t be any animals go through the rings this year.” The full Junior Fair schedule and regulations can be found at https://fultoncountyfair.com/participate/2020-junior-fair/.
“So basically that’s it,” Wyse continued. “No rides. No spectators…no nothing. If your child is exhibiting an animal, mom, dad, brothers and sisters are the only ones who are going to be able to come, and you’re going to have to have a wristband to get in. They’re really limiting the crowd, and we’ve got to do the social distancing and wear the masks and all that.”
“To me, it ain’t really a fair. Early on, we had to assure that if the kids wanted to buy animals that they had an outlet, because a lot of them with one animal really wouldn’t have a place to sell it. So this kind of gives them an out to be able to still show it, and get rid of the animal at the end.”
If there is a silver lining, Wyse is still looking for it. “Numbers are going to be down this year,” he said, because some…just didn’t go out and buy an animal. And then we’ve had a few say that if that’s all we’re going to have for fair, they wouldn’t bother bringing their animal at all. So I’ve heard mixed reviews on it. Some are glad at least they get this because they had no way to get rid of the animal if they got it.”
“And others that maybe had a way to get rid of it are just saying we’re not going to bother with it. The kids show…there can’t be no more than 10 in the ring shown at a time. And you know, the bleachers will be very sparse. It’ll probably feel like the baseball season with guys who are playing baseball with nobody in the stands. That kind of takes away a lot of it, you know? And then there’s some that are mad that can’t come.”
“I can’t blame them but hey, these are the rules. We have to abide by it. The other day I was told, you know, there’s a few fairs in Ohio that was having full fairs. I think the judge ordered Tuesday no more full fairs, because they wasn’t doing a good enough social distancing and stuff. So at least we’re still on for the moment, but if that gets out of hand, we can be shut down before we get to our fair come September.”
The sudden change of direction has also hit home in Williams County as well. The edict from Columbus came down on July 28. On July 29, Williams County Fair Board President Matthew Kennedy was calling for a special meeting of the Board on July 30.
Already stressing to put together a ‘Plan-B’ modified fair schedule with special COVID safety protocols, Kennedy and the Board of Directors had met in open session with Jim Watkins, Williams County Health Commissioner, just two weeks prior.
After the meeting of July 30, Kennedy reflected the frustration and disappointment of the Board as he described how the coronavirus pandemic had gutted the plans for the 2020 fair.
“Long story short,” Kennedy said, “…I was able to pull down an uploaded, signed order today from the governor showing in detail of what the new restrictions were. I will call it our Plan-C…the junior fair that we’re allowed. Camping with the restrictions of it’s only available to food vendors, because they obviously would need a place to stay while they’re here at the fair.”
“Directors, so we have a presence of some directors in case something should happen in the middle of the night and we need an immediate response. And family members of the youth exhibitors, since they would have livestock here, the Board passed that vote.”
The Board passed a vote to have food vendors here since the order allows us to,” Kennedy continued. “As far as grandstand events, those have all been canceled, per the order. There will be no free entertainment stage, per the order. We will still have harness racing as scheduled on Wednesday of the fair with no spectators, since the state pretty much puts that event on.”
“Any other events that would typically be at the grandstand such as your band show, that has been canceled. The cheer competition was canceled at the last meeting. Youth Night on Thursday is canceled. The Board voted to cancel showmanship sweepstakes since there would be no animals on the grounds when it would normally happen on Wednesday night of the fair.”
“The bike giveaway is cancelled because of the grouping of kids and family. As well as it’s kind of hard to get the tickets out to the kids with the issues with school not being in session, and the potential of it not being in session before the fair. We would still be moving forward with a royalty contest, since that is considered part of the Junior Fair.”
Kennedy explained the tentative operations plan for the Junior Fair. “We are looking at all market animals are still coming on haul-in day. They would be weighed and tagged. We do have a packer available for all species, except poultry and rabbits, who is willing to make multiple trips each evening, so that each species as their show is done and those market animals would be going direct, they can be hauled out.”
“This keeps the kids from having to come back and do chores after their shows are done. Any breeding stock would have the option to come in on Friday, and then be released after their show. Or they could bring them in kind of like a ‘show and go’, where they would bring them in on their trailers, show them off their trailers, and once the show is done, load them back up and take them home.”
The planning is only effective as long as there are funds to keep the lights on. Kennedy’s focus then turned toward a state grant, a program that provided a little good news after the special meeting had been completed.
On April 21, Governor DeWine announced that Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) Director Dorothy Pelanda is waiving the required $50,000 local match for the Agricultural Society Facilities Grant Program, thereby allowing all county and independent fairs to be eligible for $50,000 with no match. The funds were reported to have been released in June.
“We have yet to get the $50,000 from the state that DeWine said was going to be made available,” Kennedy said with trepidation. “I haven’t been given a direct date as to when we would receive it. I have filled out the application and the necessary paperwork, and confirmed with the ODA in June that yes, we had a scheduled for a junior fair. But the Board did vote 11 to 3 tonight – I’ll call it a Plan-D – in favor of canceling the Junior Fair if the $50,000 is not received by August 20, which is our next regular meeting.”
“The bulk of the Board,” Kennedy said, “…11 of the Directors, understand from the financial aspect, we just don’t have the money to put on a junior fair without that $50,000. We would not be charging any admissions; we would not gain any the percentage of income that we get from the ride company since they aren’t here.”
“We don’t have the money coming in at fair because of the restrictions. They don’t like to have to do it, but they understand. It is a tough decision, and if we bankrupt ourselves this year, that causes an issue with future fairs. So from a business side, they’re trying to preserve the fair for the future years. Obviously, there were three who feel otherwise, because they voted no, not to cancel.”
While the Board was prepared to sweat out the arrival of the grant funding in hopes of being able to keep the Junior Fair, their stress levels took a huge dive when about an hour after the adjournment of the meeting, Kennedy received the best news that they could hope for. The long awaited $50,000 Agricultural Society Facilities Grant had indeed arrived.
Barring any other wrenches that COVID-19 whips into the works, Williams County will be joining Fulton County in staging a Junior Fair in 2020. Keep your fingers crossed!
Timothy can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
