County fair plans continue for July 23 through 27

With all of the changes happening in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, IDR reached out to Katie Townsend, 4-H Youth Development agent with the Wildcat Extension District, in regard to the Montgomery County Fair, July 23 through 27 in Riverside Park and Ralph Mitchell Zoo, Independence.

Although things will look a little different, Townsend said the fair is definitely still on. "We have been in contact with Rick Whitson, the county emergency management director. We have been in contact with Barb Beurskens with the park and we have a plan in place for the fair," she explained. "As of right now, there is a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C for county fair. Right now we are in Plan A based on not having new cases and everything being under control."

Townsend said the fair board plans to continue to operate under Plan A unless there is a spike in positive COVID-19 cases or something may happen. "Then we would be in contact with Rick again and outline when we — Plan B is already outlined — move into it and things like that will be a call made by Rick," she confirmed.

July 21 is the Style Review and dance but, Townsend said, the first time the kids will be at the fairgrounds will be July 23 through July 27.

To make sure the fair will be a safe place for entrants and the public, Townsend said they had to purchase new hand sanitizer stations — which will be up on the barn pillars — as well as signage. "The kids aren't running the concession this year, the fair board is going to hire somebody to come in and run it so all the kids aren't in the concession stand together," she said, adding that Beurskens is doing "an awesome job" and will help by coming in everyday to use the sanitizer mister. "We will essentially mist the entire fairgrounds. Obviously, not right around the livestock but everything else — we will just completely mist it."

She added a ramped up cleaning schedule will be laid out and social distancing is strongly encouraged as much as possible. "When we do consultated judging, instead of the youth being across the table from the judge, we are going to go end-to-end, the long way, just to have that six foot of distance yet they can still see what the judge is pointing to and talking about," Townsend stated. She said the different stations will be spaced out for contests. "It will just take us longer to do because we will only let 'x' amounts of kids in the building at one time so they can space out to do their tests and then we will open it back up and let the next round in and so on."

Townsend said the goal is for the fair to be the same even though there are some differences from past fairs. "We are trying to do everything as close as possible but everything has a modification so we are still going to move through with our big Style Review night, we are just going to group the chairs in groups of three, four or six so that family units can sit together," she explained. "We are still going to have our dance but the kids are in charge of it and they are doing all line dancing-type stuff. We have told them no two-stepping or that type of dancing this year. We are just going to do line dancing and play games."

She added, "We are still trying to do everything and make everything happen, just making sure we take some extra precautions."

Montgomery County Fair board members include Craig Newby, president; Jeff Culver, vice president; Sharon Ward, secretary; Jackie Chandler, treasurer; and Joel Keene, Trisha Snyder, Tony Henry, Ashley Pippin, Nancy Evans, Liz Schwatken, Travis Lee, Darrell DeTar, Angela Edwards and Mikelynn Allen. Four-H council representatives are Ashley Chandler, Sarah Schwatken and Hannah Graybill.

[To learn more about the K-State Wildcat Extension Office, visit wildcatdistrict.k-state.edu]