County fair to open a week early
Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008
Campers and booths are popping up all across the Washington County Fairgrounds.
The event has been moved to a week earlier than when it was originally announced, but Doris Cassidy, Fair board president, said she expects plenty of people to enjoy the 2008 Washington County Fair anyway.
The fair runs from Saturday through Aug. 23, but the carnival won't open until 5 p.m. Tuesday, Cassidy said. She said the decision to hold the fair a week earlier came when the carnival that usually supplies the event with rides and games told the board it could not come to town the week originally planned. The board found out a month ago.
"We just moved everything forward," she said.
Cassidy said she doesn't think the date change will affect crowd turnout much. Signs with the date change have been posted all across the county, and she has done regular radio spots to promote the date change.
"I think we've had the word out long enough," Cassidy said.
She added that the crowd of people who began setting up their campers, booths and exhibits on Wednesday enhanced that theory.
Not a lot has changed for the fair between 2007 and 2008. Cassidy said the new additions at the fair last year - a tractor pull, a beauty contest and a Dutch oven cooking contest - will be around this year. She said the Miss Washington County Fair contest will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday in the University of Arkansas Student Union Ballroom, instead of its original location, the Pauline Whitaker Arena.
"It was just too hot and too difficult for the girls to change outfits there," Cassidy said.
Thursday will mark one of the highlights of the fair: the Junior Livestock Sale. Cassidy said children raising animals to enter into the fair look forward to the sale all year long because it gives them a chance to earn some money for their hard work.
The carnival will sell armbands as well as individual tickets for the rides, she said. The armbands will cost about $ 30 and allows purchasers access to all the rides the entire night.
Cassidy said at the end of the 2007 fair that numbers for the year were up. She said she hopes the trend will continue this year, and she suspects higher gas prices will aid that.
"My hope is that, with the price of gas, everyone would come to the fair because it's close to home," she said.
She also hopes the area holds on to the 85 degree weather it has been seeing during the past two weeks.
According to the National Weather Service Web site, Washington County is due for thunderstorms and rain throughout the weekend and into the early week, though the chances for rain on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are low and temperatures should sit in the low 80 s.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
