can be very hot adding another level of stress to the show animals,” Fisher said.
Pushing the fair dates back is another positive.
“ Now every school will be in session for a week or so, whereas the old dates, not all schools were even started at that point,” he said.“ This made it hard for the ag teachers to get with the kids to figure out who and what was going to the fair.”
Hankins said that the entire group of fair board members, nine in total, had to think outside the box. Losing the carnival meant they needed to replace the entertainment factor for the fair evenings at the end of the week.
With the loss of the carnival and seeing a visible drop in attendance numbers for the three-day county fair in recent years, Hankins and others on the board started talking about what they could do to bring those youth back to the fair, and how to attract the general population to visit the fair.
Enter the rodeo. That was another event that eventually disappeared from the fair lineup in recent years.
“ Big L Productions are doing the rodeo. They came and proposed the idea of bringing the rodeo back,” Hankins said.
“ It was the perfect segue, so we put our efforts and energies into something that will drive some attendance, hopefully.
“ There were some challenges with it because you know that time of the year it’ s hot. The more comfortable you can make attendees, the better turnout you’ re going to have,” he said.“ By moving the rodeo
to Friday and Saturday, it allowed us to adjust our livestock shows to earlier in the week, Monday and Tuesday, at night. This was the challenge that we were proposed with, is that we want these kids to be able to stay in school, attend school, but still be able to come and attend( participate in) the livestock show.”
Wednesday day will be a fun day event for the school youth in FFA and 4-H, filled with livestock judging competition, Farmhand Olympics and tractor driving inside the arena.
As for rodeo activity, barrel racing is set for Wednesday night, roping on Thursday and the big rodeo is Friday and Saturday. There is an admission fee for the rodeo. Making these adjustments benefits both the student livestock show during the county fair, and the rodeo. Both will be held in the main Fair & Expo Center( recently renamed to the Gary Ledford Arena.) That facility is air-conditioned, making it easier on the people and the animals.
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Wishing all our friends and neighbors a wonderful time at this year’ s fair!
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8 FREE FAIR FUN | 2026