JEFFERSON — Overall, the Jefferson County Fair ran pretty smoothly this year, but community members had a few ideas in mind to make it go even better in the future.
That’s the upshot of a community meeting held last week at the Jefferson County Fair Park.
Activity Center seeking locals’ input on the fair, which took place July 11-15.
This year’s fair brought in about 40,000 visitors, officials said.
Next year’s fair has been set for July 10-14, 2019, although the theme and the big attractions have yet to be announced.
In attendance were a variety of county planners, superintendents of the various competitive
areas, representatives of the county board and sheriff’s department and other community boosters.
The meeting was facilitated by Roger Kylmanen, Jefferson County Fair Park supervisor, and Amy Listle, marketing and administrative assistant for the fair.
The organizers sought comments in three areas: what went well, what needs improvement, and ideas for the future.
Leading off the discussion, Keith Kulow, draft horse supervisor, said that the draft horse show went really smoothly this year, better than in the past.
Bill Uecker, dairy cattle superintendent, said that overall, he felt the fair went extremely well, and he commended the dairy staff on all of the effort they put into accommodating the dairy folks.
He did have one suggestion to make things easier in the future, however. He said there needs to be better lighting by the dairy barn to help people who are washing their animals very early in the morning before they finish up their rounds of chores.
Representatives of the rabbit project said that organizationally, their show went really well too, but they’d like to see the uneven floor in the bunny barn leveled for safety reasons, as people step in the holes and lose their balance.
Another attendee said this marked the best year ever, in their experience, in terms of exhibitors being off the grounds on time. Attendees commended the departmental superintendents for their efforts in this area.
Kudos also went out to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for its role in making sure things went smoothly at the fair this year.
Another positive comment involved the fact that escorts were available to help out-of county judges find the areas where they needed to be.
Cindy Jaquith, president-elect of the Jefferson County 4-H Leaders’ Association, said that she realizes it always is difficult to find a business/organization to run the kitchen in the Activity Center, but she would like to see the county look into new possibilities.
Some of the superintendents mentioned the need for better maps and signage that would help competitors and judges find the areas where their judging was going to take place.
John Laatsch, open class photography superintendent, said that he realizes that the fair has an outdoor public announcement system, but he’d like to see the P.A. system linked up within the buildings. When an event is going on, he said, it’s difficult for people to hear an emergency notice even if it’s announced on the outside P.A. system.
While the idea is sound, Kylmanen responded, it would be “horribly expensive” to install at this time.
New ideas for the fair going into the future included a number of educational possibilities, as well as directions for promoting safety during a major storm like the one that rolled through on the Friday night of this past fair.
In terms of educational ideas, one attendee suggested an art contest to go along with the fair’s annual theme. For example, in the “Year of the Chicken,” the fair could solicit art from area high schoolers depicting that animal.
Kylmanen said that actually had been done, “years back.”
Another attendee wanted to see the “chocolate lovers’” baking contest returned.
Fair representatives noted that the contest used to be sponsored by Claussen, which stopped doing that. Perhaps something similar could be done with the support of another area business, featuring locally made Crave cheese, for example, or Jones Dairy Farm sausage.
One attendee offered the idea of having educational displays in each of the animal exhibit areas, including interactive activities to bring in young children. She said youngsters love to collect wooden eggs in the poultry barn, for example, and in the dairy area, the fair could arrange to have a model milking cow for kids to try out.
A model milking cow actually was a big hit in the children’s activity tent that used to be hosted by Busy Barns Adventure Farm, but that’s gone by the wayside for organizational reasons.
The speaker who promoted that idea said that visitors even could vote on their favorite educational exhibit and an award could be given out for the department with the best interactive activity.
A similar idea was to provide a mock “shopping” experience for children in which they could pick up toy eggs in the poultry barn, little milk cartons in the dairy barn and so on, thus encouraging people to visit all of the animal exhibits. Then when they visited all of the areas, children could take their items to a “store” where they could “buy” finished items.
Again, Kylmanen said that Jefferson County did something similar at one time. The problem with activities like that and the ag education tent that the fair had for some years was that it was a lot of work to set up beforehand, and then someone had to be paid to man that activity throughout the run of the fair.
Another educational idea that would be less work-intensive was a “punchcard” to encourage people to visit all of the different areas of the fair. Once all of those areas were punched, the letters left on the card would spell out the answer to a riddle that would entitle finishers to a small prize, like a sticker.
One attendee thought it would be great to bring a beehive exhibit to the fair. This was done during the “Year of the Honeybee,” Kylmanen said.
In terms of safety precautions, attendees were interested to find out more about fair protocols that would require people to exit the fairgrounds or to seek out shelter on the grounds.
One attendee noted that during this year’s storm, campers on the fairgrounds were instructed to leave their campers and head to secure areas.
“What’s the contingency plan?” that attendee asked.
A representative of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said in that event, his department would advise all fair attendees who weren’t camping on site to leave the fairgrounds. Those who were camping on the grounds should head for the secure areas established by the county.
Once, when campers checked in, they were provided with all of that information and directed to the “secure location” closest to their campsite in case of inclement weather.
However, organizers found that people often were not at their campsites when inclement weather hit, so they stopped assigning specific secure areas for each site, rather directing people to head for the concrete restroom buildings in case of a major storm.
“All of the bathrooms at the fairgrounds are designated storm shelters,” the official noted.
Those with animals likely were to go where their animals are rather than to a designated shelter, one attendee said, though Kylmanen strongly recommended against that.
Another attendee said that an additional problem faced by families camping on site is that the parents likely were to be in one location — perhaps the grandstand — while the kids likely were to be wandering around elsewhere on the fairgrounds, perhaps with their animals or in the carnival area, and the county really needed to establish a meet-up area where families could reunite before heading to an emergency shelter. The poultry barn was suggested as a potential meet-up site.
Also in the event of a big storm, attendees said, the doors between the Activity Center restrooms and the outside-entry showers should be unlocked. Kylmanen said that there usually are fair staffers around who can do that.
Additional comments centered on the new layout for the Activity Center. This year, the commercial/vendor exhibits, which had been moved around from a separate building and then the back wing of the main fair building, occupied a central space that essentially bisected the Activity Center’s main exhibit hall. Some thought that worked really well, while others thought it needed to be changed.
Kim Kreger, past-president of the Jefferson County 4-H Leaders Association, said she liked the layout better, although the cultural arts department did need a little bit more space.
Laatsch said that while he was manning the photo display in the northwest corner of the Activity Center, he heard from a lot of people who did not think the vendors should have been as centrally located, as it separated the 4-H displays off to the side.
Chris Spangler
In addition, he said, the layout of the space this year caused a bit of a traffic blockage as groups of people stopped to play wheel-of-fortune and other games at various vendor booths, clogging up the traffic flow so people with wheelchairs or strollers could not get through.
“We have struggled over the years as to what’s the right place to put the commercial vendors,” Kylmanen said.
He said that he and other county officials will be looking at a number of potential changes for next year’s fair.
“We’ll see as soon as the budget is approved,” he said.