What's Happening at the Fair?

The Fair poster is done! We hope it will attract your attention to the many livestock shows, musicians and entertainers that will be part of our fair this August. Some of the entertainers are locals who have amazing talents and will be performing on the stage throughout the three days of our Fair. Valle Ledtke created this eye catching poster using a rainbow of colors and fitting lots of information attractively into a limited space. Nice job, Valle.

The second Horsemanship Challenge Series event was full of new obstacles and looked to be an event that was challenging and also fun for the horse and rider. Some of the obstacles were quite amazing. I will try to describe a few of my favorites but you really need to attend the Fair and watch the action for yourselves! The duck pond: a long wet spot in the arena full of water and ducks! In one corner stood a real donkey, eating hay and braying loudly every now and then. A sand mountain had swimming noodles that the horse had to push through when he got to the top. The calf sorting was fun to watch, as horse and rider worked to sort the calves multiple times within a timed limit. My most favorite obstacle to watch was the big ball. This ball is huge, it looks to be about four feet tall! The horse has to push this ball with his knees, chest or nose. It’s so funny to watch the horses learn to move and play with this huge ball! If you missed the first two events be sure to come to the Fair and watch the series final, it’s going to be another fun event planned by Shawn and Tina Merz, leaders of the Island riders 4-H club. High point winners at the event were Junior-Landon Luce; Intermediate-Levi Delamarter; Senior-Mercedes; Adult-Ashlee Olsen. For Horsemanship Challenge information contact Show Manager Tina Merz at 957- 5368.

Fair passes have been distributed to six local businesses to make it easier to purchase your three day Fair pass. The passes are a bargain costing only $6 each! Support your Wahkiakum County Fair by purchasing a Fair pass at the Skamokawa Resort, Sharon’s Pizza and More, Cathlamet Pharmacy, Bank of the Pacific in Cathlamet, the Rosburg Store, the Bank of the Pacific in Naselle and the Fairgrounds office. The Wahkiakum County Fair Board will have a booth at the Bald Eagle Day event. We will have Fair passes for sale, Fair schedules of entertainment to give away and Firewood raffle tickets too. Look for our booth at the Bald Eagle Day celebration.

Lots of new landscaping has been done to beautify the Fairgrounds and we were almost out of the cedar sawdust that we use in these projects. I talked with Scott Anderson at Anderson Shake and Shingle Inc. and he provided us with a nice big truck load of bright good smelling cedar to use. We asked Nick Brockway to drive that big truck loaded with cedar sawdust, as he has worked many years driving big trucks. Thanks, Scott and Nick for keeping our projects rolling along!

Groups of shoppers stopped by the fairgrounds Rummage and Book sale on Saturday and took home sacks full of books and treasures. Thank you for your purchases! We will be packing up the sale and plan to reopen after Fair. Many thanks to fair board member Maureen Zacker-Bockius for helping at the sales and packing up the books for storage!

It was a beautiful day to paint when fair board member Joe Blalock decided to bring his whole family to the fairgrounds to help get some painting projects done. He brought his three daughters and wife, they were a hard working crew. They each had their own paint containers and brushes and went right to work. Their project was to paint the horse shoe backdrops. They used up almost two gallons of paint and their project looks bright and colorful as you look out into the park area. Thank you to the Joe Blalock family.

If you need to gain access to the fairgrounds, contact Fair Manager Becky Ledtke at 360-795-3480 and please leave a message. Need some exhibitor tags or an exhibitor number? The Fair office will be open Monday-Thursday noon to 3 p.m. or by appointment if these hours don’t fit your schedule.