Cleveland County Fair

This week will bring the opening of the 86th Cleveland County Fair. In 1924, the Shelby Kiwanis Club under the leadership of O. Max Gardner and Dr. J. S. Dorton faciliated merging several local fairs together to open the first Cleveland County Fair. Many families including mine and David's were early supporters of the new merged fair. I can remember my grandmother, Alma Hunt, still going to the fair well into her 90's. She loved to go to the exhibit hall to see how all the school booths were decorated and she loved to see the animals.

Over these 86 years, there's no telling how many memories have been made. From entering livestock, vegetables and other competitions to seeing wild shows to riding crazy rides to eating fair food, there are probably as many fair memories as there are people who say meet me at the waterwheel.

Libby reminded me that this picture of my sisters and I was taken when we were practicing for a hula hoop contest at the 1958 Cleveland County Fair. They teased me because I was only 2 years old but wanted to enter with my sisters. All of my sisters won in one category or another and I won the youngest person to enter category. I'm pretty sure we can all still hula hoop.

Mama Crowder and Granddaddy worked at the fair in concession stands with Uncle Ab and Aunt Mittie Spangler and later with Ed Wilson. I can still see Ed Wilson sitting in a little booth in the front of the concession stand. Mama Crowder would be making biscuits for the ham right there in the back of the stand while Granddaddy and others took food orders. Those were the best ham biscuits. Libby remembers working in the concession stand and how cold it was to pull the bottled drinks out of the icy cooler. They never would let me work back there. In those days the midway was not paved and when you came home from the fair, blowing your nose was a memorable experience.

In junior high school, my friend Lynn and I made plans to go to the fair. We walked home from school and stopped by the Handy Pantry for a Slurpee before fair time. As soon as we got to the midway I wanted to ride the Spyder. Lynn said she didn't think she could ride it without getting sick, but I talked her into it. Let's just say that I never did care about having another Slurpee from the Handy Pantry after that ride. Lynn and I remember a lot of details and we still laugh about this even after all of these years.

I loved to see the animals and ride the rides, but one of my favorite things was the fun house - especially when it had one of those revolving circles on the way out. The Haunted House never was my thing.

Going to the fair remained a tradition with our boys. When they were in elementary school, we had a couple of volunteer pumpkins growing in our yard. I'm pretty sure this was due to the Halloween jack-o-lantern from the year before being kicked off the porch, but regardless of how it got there, we had several large pumpkins. The boys entered the pumpkins into the fair and we still have their light blue participation ribbon. For years, Daddy entered cows into the fair and last year when David IV helped out with canning green beans, Daddy suggested that David enter his canned beans into the fair. These beans didn't win, but it is always fun to visit your entries in the exhibit halls.

Fair food is a wonder. The smells and the sounds and the craziness of the midway send me in a beeline to French Fries with vinegar. And we all love to go to Deanna's because we have watched this cute family of six grow up. Each year it seems one of the children is in a new booth with something like ice cream or lemonade to add to their original booth with ribs on a stick and gyros.

So this Thursday the 86th Cleveland County Fair will open and we are praying for good fair weather. See ya at the waterwheel!