Another Year, Another Fair

By Jennifer Halley, the West Side Newspaper

The Polk County Fair ran from August 5 to 8, and saw 16,550 people wander through the fairgrounds during the course of the four-day event. 

Fair Manager Tina Andersen said attendance was down by about 20% due to the smoke and heat.

“But our attendees loved this year’s theme, “The Little Fair that Could,” she said, “and we took in several donations from our community trying to keep our doors open.”

The fairgrounds are facing potential closure if the positioned tax levy, which residents can vote on in November, doesn’t pass. The levy would cost taxpayers $.12 cents per thousand on assessed value, and help to pay for a proposed five-year budget that includes necessary maintenance updates. 

“Our hope is that our community realizes how much our little fairgrounds means to our community and helps us keep our doors open,” Andersen said. 

Local bands playing live music, the 4-H Monster Cookie Contest, the Beautiful Baby Contest and the Garden Tractor Pull were some of the events that attendees watched or participated in. The Oregon High School Equestrian Team (OHSET) competed in barrel racing and pole bending, and young members of 4-H & Future Farmers of America (FFA) presented their livestock at the youth livestock auction. 

There were also animal and fruit and vegetable displays, as well as youth arts & crafts, sewing, photography, fine arts, poetry, and foods & table-setting contests that community members enter for competition. 

Overall, the fair employed about 600 volunteers. 

“There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes on to get this fair put together,” Andersen said. “So everybody does everything.”

If the levy does not pass in November, the fairgrounds will close on December 31.