What's Happening at the Fair?

Did you cash your fair check yet? Don’t forget! Fair checks have to be cashed before the end of October. I will keep reminding you each week! If you haven’t received your check yet, give me a call.

Want to help sponsor next years fair? Donate your fair premium check back to the Fair. Send your check to: Wahkiakum County Fair, P.O. Box 1, Skamokawa, WA 98647. Thank you, Frans Eykel for donating your fair premium check back to the fair!

This week volunteer Ed Stevens and I worked on the area in the arena where people gather to watch events. All the bleachers, tables and benches have been rearranged and pressure washed. We are getting the arena ready for the 4-H enrollment event coming up in November that will be held at the fairgrounds. If you would like to enroll your children or learn about the 4-H program you will want to attend this event next month.

I needed to have a big fair sign repainted, so I asked our community for help. Local artist Martie Vavoudis volunteered. She is going to repaint the big Wahkiakum County Fair sign this winter. Thank you, Martie!

Each month I keep track of all the volunteer hours that were worked on the fairgrounds. There is a volunteer sign in sheet on the office porch for this purpose. Every three months I add them up. We had a total of 646.5 volunteer hours worked in the past three months. Some of the projects these volunteers helped us work on were: tearing down the old entertainment stage, pouring two concrete pads in the horse barn, a concrete ramp for the lions bingo building, painting picnic tables, landscaping, weed eating, mowing acres of grass, we cleaned up many years of accumulated junk stuffed behind buildings on the fairgrounds, we built a useable pig, goat and sheep barn with forgotten lumber we found behind buildings. We also used some left over concrete given to us by Mark Crary who built our new stage to make some vendor tent weights. We poured the extra concrete in to 2 gallon black plastic plant containers, put a big bolt in the middle to tie a rope to and we had some nice heavy weights to loan to vendors when the winds started trying to blow their tents away. This year we had an amazing amount of work to do to the fairgrounds. Volunteers from our community helped, community service workers helped and we accomplished much together. Thank-you to all who called or stopped by the office to find out if I needed some help!

It’s time to think about a fair theme for 2012! The whole fairgrounds will be decorated to fit the theme that is selected. Email your theme ideas to wahkiakumfair@centurytel.net. In early 2012 we will be choosing the fair theme, if we pick the one you submitted, you will receive two fair passes and two Wahkiakum County Fair T-shirts. Last year's theme was “Country Pride, County Wide.” You can send me one or 100 theme ideas!

Coming up next month on November 18, we will hold the Wahkiakum County Fair Board’s Turkey Bingo! This is a fun night for all ages and you just might win your Thanksgiving turkey at the bingo. Keep reading this column for more details each week!

The fair office is open by appointment only. If you need to gain access to the fairgrounds contact Fair Manager Becky Ledtke at 360-560-0371 or 795-3480 and leave a message.

The next Wahkiakum County Fair Board meeting is November 9, 7 p.m., at the River Street meeting room in Cathlamet. The public is always welcome to attend.