162nd Van Wert County Fair is now over

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The. Fair. Is. Over. To many people, those are the saddest words they’ve heard in a week. To Junior Fair livestock and dairy exhibitors, though, today is a day they’ve been thinking about over the past several months of hard work.

Days of mucking out stalls, brushing and hosing down livestock, trimming hooves, teaching steers, lambs, goats, hogs, dairy calves, rabbits, etc., to show well, are over. The blue ribbons, the rosettes, the trophies, have all been handed out.

Today means a paycheck for all those work days as the Junior Fair Livestock Show gets underway at 9 a.m. in the Farm Focus Arena.

It starts with the auctioning off of the traditional gallon of milk for dairy exhibitors who don’t sell their livestock. After that it will be a parade of animals and the cries of the auctioneers until all of the hundreds of animals exhibited this year are sold to an area business, government official, organization, or consortium of entities.

Monday, Labor Day, was the official end of the fair, with rides and games, food and beverage vendors, and 4-H and FFA projects mostly packed up and headed either home or to another event somewhere.

The cheerleaders have gone, as have the tractor and truck pull competitors, the harness racehorses and sulky drivers, the thoroughbred horses and jockeys, the lawn mower drag racers, the Motocross racers, the Demolition Derby competitors, the horseshoe tossers, the entertainers.

There are still some diehards on the fairgrounds: The Farm Bureau food stand and Venedocia Lions will still be serving sandwiches, milkshakes, and other goodies to those attending the livestock auction.

But most of what makes the Van Wert County Fair the event it is has gone, leaving the essentials: The livestock that have been shown at each of the past 161 Van Wert County Fairs.

While other components come and go, the kids who show animals have remained the heart of the fair, its essence, its raison d’etre (reason for existing).

And today is their payday. The day when local businesses, individuals, and organizations provide them with money for their show animals. For some kids, parting with the animals they’ve bonded with over the past few months can be painful and sad, for others, it’s more like parents sending their kids back to school after a summer off. For most, it’s a combination of those feelings.

But no matter whether it’s hot, wet, or whatever (barring an unlikely tornado), the auction will take place as scheduled today.

Thousands of dollars will change hands as kids get cash and buyers get livestock. It’s a way for buyers to show their support for the Junior Fair, for banks, seed companies, etc., to show their big farm clients they appreciate their business, it’s a lot of different reasons why people are willing to sit for hours and bid on kids’ show animals.

That effort should be appreciated, as much as the effort of the kids in raising the animals in the first place, for without the buyers, there would be no auction … and likely no Junior Fair as well.

For the Junior Fair is capitalism in microcosm. It’s the idea that hard work results in monetary compensation. And if one excels and shows a grand or reserve champion, the rewards can be significant.