News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Van Buren County Fair organizers busy getting things ready for this week’s activities, a year-long process to get things ready.
Fair Organizer Lesa Bouldin said this year’s theme is “Jam Packed with Fun.” Among the events, the fair welcomes a new event this year, the AG Olympics. Bouldin said the competition is three separate categories.
“It’s pretty simple things,” Bouldin said. “We’re going to have a relay, a farmhand relay. It’ll involve a wheelbarrow and a couple of people. And then I don’t want to give it all away. We got hay bail toss, a square hay bail toss for women and men. The women one was my ideas. Getting older, that’s hard to compete with a man. And then the bucket and bolt. It’s hard to explain, but it’ll have a bucket and there’ll be different bolts in it with hay.”
Additional crowd-favorite events returning this year include the chainsaw competition, horse show, and greased pig competition.
Bouldin said one change is this year’s Fairest of the Fair pageant will be hosted at Van Buren High School. Bouldin said the pageant was moved out of the Ag Center because the high school offers more seating and space for the fair’s crowd. The stage of the high school is also easier for the crowd to see with the building’s auditorium seating, Bouldin said.
Bouldin said that one of the more difficult pieces to get together in time was the booklet that they release with the Fair’s opening. Bouldin said the organizers had a hard time producing a cover page for the book that they felt was quality.
“We were a little late because we all had writer’s block or I don’t know we kind of knew what we wanted,” Bouldin said. “But, when we were all just totally stumped and ready to put a stick man on the front of it, I had seen some stuff that Gage Farmer had done, and I reached out to him.”
The fair continues through September 17th.
