What's Happening at the Fair?

The Washington State Fairs Convention held in Yakima was a great place to share ideas with fair managers and fair board members. I spent three days attending fair workshops and meeting numerous talented entertainers and am bringing home stacks of information to share with our fair board.

While at the convention, I entered our 2012 Wahkiakum County Fair poster into the poster contest and it won first place! We competed with fairs who have under 9,000 people in attendance to receive a big beautiful blue and black first place ribbon. Administrative assistant Valle Ledtke created the poster; great job, Valle!

Our next fund raising raffle will be for a cord of alder firewood. We will be selling $1 raffle tickets at every Wahkiakum County Fair Board event. The wood was cut recently and will be nice and dry by August. We plan to draw the winning ticket on August 17 at the 2013 Wahkiakum County Fair. Working on this project were Dan Cothren, our tree faller, Bill Chamberlain, our heavy equipment operator, Ed Stevens and Mac Johnson, chainsaw operators and wood splitters, and wood stackers MacKenzie Stevens, Jazmin Wood and Georgie Billings. Lots of thanks to our volunteer crew, they are working hard to finish this project.

The fair rummage and book sale will be closed this Saturday as most of our community will be traveling to Mt. Vernon to support the Wahkiakum Mules! Go Mules! Please check the Wahkiakum County Fair facebook page for current information about events.

Attention youth exhibitors: Be sure to cash your fair premium check before November 10, 2012. The account will be closed on November 11.

Turkey Bingo is only a week away! Fair board members are collecting raffle prizes, planning a snack menu and organizing volunteers to help at this fund raising event. We have purchased the Grand raffle prize! This year the board decided to raffle a Sears Kenmore stainless steel and porcelain propane barbecue. The barbecue has a cooking grill, a searing burner, a warming rack and a side burner. Raffle tickets are only $1 each and will be sold at the bingo fundraiser on November 16, at the J. A. Wendt School in the multi-purpose room. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and bingo begins at 6 p.m. At the end of the evening a raffle ticket will be drawn and one lucky person will take home a new Sears Kenmore barbecue. Every bingo winner receives a ham or turkey for their bingo prize at this event. Mark November 16 on your calendar, spend the evening with your family playing bingo and support the Wahkiakum County Fair.

The Fairgrounds is open for limited hours in November. If you need to gain access to the fairgrounds contact Manager Becky Ledtke at 560-0371, or you can call 360-795-3480 and leave a message on the fairgrounds answering machine.

If you would like to make a donation to support the 2013 Wahkiakum County Fair, send donations to Wahkiakum County Fair, PO Box 1, Skamokawa, WA 98647. Your donation will be greatly appreciated.

The next Wahkiakum County Fair Board meeting is November 14, 7 p.m. at the County Court House in Cathlamet, 3rd floor meeting room.