Summer fairs are in ‘holding pattern’
Haley Felton of Midway dries off her boer goat Daisy with the help of Marcus Subrick of Washington at the Washington County Fair in this photo from 2018.
Observer-Reporter
In this photo from 2018, Josiah Earnest of Marianna walks his Dutch Belted cow, Callie, through the Greene County Fair 4-H barn.
Ben Redd of Washington with his first place market lamb at the 2018 Washington County Fair
Months of planning go into summer’s county and community fairs, but uncertainties about the novel coronavirus situation have created what fair leaders are calling “a holding pattern.”
“We’ve kind of held off on a few things,” said Wayne Hunnell, a director and secretary of the Washington County Fair Board, who was reached by phone Monday at the fairgrounds and expo center office in Arden, Chartiers Township, the venue for the Aug. 15-22 event.
A virtual meeting of the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs takes place, with a representative or two from the state Agriculture Department, later this week to discuss public and animal health issues.
4-H clubs currently can meet via video or teleconference, but not in person to discuss their projects, whether they be animal, vegetable or mineral.
“Obviously, that’s a big piece of the fair,” Hunnell said.
The early-May ear-tagging of 4-H lambs, goats and hogs at the fairgrounds, which was to be held in conjunction with prospective participants in the West Alexander Fair, has been canceled and youngsters have instead been instructed to photograph their animals from various perspectives.
The ear-tagging event identifies animals to ensure another beast is not substituted during fair week, when weigh-ins and rate of gain mark an animal’s progress toward marketability. Steers, a longer-term project, were tagged last year.
“If we don’t have the fair, what do they do with these animals?” Hunnell asked.
Members of the Washington County Fair Board will also be convening virtually, and May 8 looms large in Pennsylvania because Gov. Tom Wolf has targeted that date in his statewide shutdown order.
And in mid-May, there’s a significant meeting of Penn State Extension personnel.
Hunnell said the Washington County Fair premium book and brochure is ready for publication, and the fair board was in the process of installing software to allow online entries depending on the outcome of the several meetings.
Debbie Stephenson, who serves as both the secretary/treasurer for the Greene County Fair Board and the Southwestern Pennsylvania representative on the state fair board, also described the fate of the fairs as a fluid situation.
“We’re moving forward as if we were going to hold fairs,” Stephenson said. “At this time with COVID-19, we can’t say yes and we can’t say no.”
According to Stephenson, there are currently no plans to cancel or postpone either the Jacktown Fair in Wind Ridge, slated for July 16-20, or the Greene County Fair, scheduled for Aug. 9-15.
“It’s up in the air. We all wait for May 8th when the governor says, ‘Hey, this is what’s going to happen.’ We’re waiting to see what he comes up with in his plan,” Stephenson said.
Stephenson points out that fairs mean a good deal to local economies, and that there have already been months of preparation.
“Everyone has a lot at stake,” she said. “People think it happens overnight, but it just doesn’t.”
Wrapping up the Washington-Greene fair season is the West Alexander Fair Sept. 7-12, a stone’s throw away from a neighboring state.
Because it draws entrants from both Pennsylvania and Ohio County, W.Va., there’s another wrinkle that perhaps isn’t as significant to the other three fairs.
West Virginia kids “follow our livestock rules,” said Barbara Reed, West Alexander Fair organizer, but she is keeping up with directives from both the Penn State and West Virginia extensions.
“We don’t have a definitive Plan B,” she said Monday. “We haven’t crossed that bridge yet.”