By Barbara S. Miller

Staff writer

bmiller@observer-reporter.com

Four area fairs will be receiving $47,250 in matching money from state taxpayers to improve fairgrounds.

The grants announced Monday include $25,000 to the Washington County Fair, Arden, for campground improvements; $11,000 to the Jacktown Fair to install new drains at concession stands; $10,000 to the Hookstown Fair, Beaver County, to upgrade its electrical distribution center; and $1,250 to the West Alexander Fair for tarring and chipping roads.

"As the nation's oldest continuing fair, the Jacktown Fair has brought good times to the people of Greene County for over a hundred years," state Sen. J. Barry Stout said in a press release. "This grant will enable the fair to continue for a hundred more."

The West Alexander Fair, which runs Sept. 3-8, will be observing its 101st anniversary this year, although technically this will be its 100th fair.

"It was canceled one year when polio was prevalent before there was a vaccine," said Dorothy McMurray, West Alexander Fair Association secretary.

The West Alexander fair board had roads to the barns and parking lot tarred and chipped just last week in anticipation of its annual event, which opens on Labor Day. Entries arrive the day before.

The Washington County Fair is expanding its campground to attract more campers during fair week, Aug. 11-18, and it has already planned its next major project.

Once the fair concludes, the Malone Barn, which has stall space for 60 horses, will get a new roof, said Dick Horstman, fair board president.

The grants are usually announced around July 1, but the delay in approving the state budget seems to have had a ripple effect.

Horstman said with work at The Meadows Racetrack & Casino in nearby North Strabane Township, people have been renting stalls for about 130 horses, three times the usual number.

Replacing the corrugated steel roof on the Malone Barn, one of six horse barns at the fairgrounds, will take about a week.

The last time the roof was replaced was "before you and I were alive, and I'm 63," Horstman said. "It's like everything else on the fairgrounds. You do what has to be done."

Pennsylvania has 116 county and community fairs. This year, the Department of Agriculture's fair advisory board approved 55 applications for matching money totaling $750,000. The matching grants were announced by area legislators and Gov. Ed Rendell.

Agriculture is the state's largest industry, and tourism comes in second.

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Arden will receive $15,195 for operating expenses from the state Historical and Museum Commission

Scott Becker, executive director, said the money will be used toward the salaries of paid staff, including his salary and that of the museum educator, visitor services manager and store leader.

"Our museum is mostly staffed by volunteers," Becker said. "Last year, there were almost 29,000 hours donated by 150 different volunteers."

From outside the Pittsburgh area, the museum attracts volunteers from Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, and Baltimore, Atlanta, Boston and Austin, Texas, where a man hops on an airliner and spends a 40- to 50-day stretch volunteering.

"He loves to operate streetcars and talk to the public," Becker said.

It's more typical that museums get taxpayers' money for new projects.

"The operating grants are the hardest to get," Becker said. "We're extremely grateful to the commonwealth and the way they support museums. We're also an operating railway, which entails even more expense."

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