The greatest news this week has to be about Mike and Carrie Backman. Two very nice people in our community met, fell in love and were married last Saturday. They held their reception in the Fairgrounds Park and invited all family and friends to attend. Congratulations Carrie and Mike!

The Fairgrounds Park is a great place to have special events like weddings, receptions, private parties and family reunions. It’s private and big enough for a huge crowd. If you are interested in reserving a week-end or a day, give me a call.

How many people attended our Fair? To get the answer I have to add up the grade school kids, high school teenagers and adults who paid at the gates, people who purchased pre-season and season passes, then add the commercial vendors and livestock passes, add to that all the free kids, seniors, military, judges, complimentary passes and entertainers and that gives me a pretty true number. Our attendance is up, the grand total is: 3731 people attended our fair!

Fair checks? I am ready to print the Fair checks. I have added up all the ribbon premium points and we have 45,042 premium points this year. I just need a per point amount from the Fair Board and the checks will be mailed to your address!

I still have a few $15 Silver Buckle Game Show T-shirts and $12 Fair T-shirts in pretty colors for sale. The fair shirts are sky blue, green, Caribbean blue and light purple. I have sizes small, medium and large available. If interested call the fair office.

Did you sign up for the horse shoe competition and play in the Fair Tournament? The tournament was delayed an hour while competitors rounded up more horse shoes, then the skilled tossing began. The final winners of the competition were Miles Nielson and Chip Perkins. After the tournament, Robert Kleinhans volunteered to run the event next year! Robert has indicated to me he is going to turn this competition into a big event. Thank you Robert! Looks like we will be needing even more horse shoes. If you have some you can donate to the Fair give me a call.

Each year as people are looking at exhibits in the T-building they are asked to vote for a favorite flower, photo, and quilt. The T-building hostesses write down the selections, we add them up and award a People's Choice Certificate to the exhibit with the most votes. Betty Koziel’s exhibit of a beautiful Begonia won the People’s Choice Flower Award. Daniel Bernstein’s photo exhibit received the People’s Choice Photo Award. In the quilt division Jae Stewart won the People’s Choice Award for the beautiful quilt that she made and exhibited at our Fair. Congratulations to all three and I look forward to seeing your exhibits next year.

If you need to gain access to the fairgrounds contact Manager Becky Ledtke at 360-560-0371, or you can call 1-360-795-3480 and leave a message on the fairgrounds answering machine.

Do you have some good ideas for new fundraisers to support our Fair? Want to help plan the next Wahkiakum County Fair? We have two open positions on the Fair Board. If interested please come to our next board meeting.

The next Wahkiakum County Fair Board meeting is September 14, 7p.m., T-Building, at the Fairgrounds in Skamokawa. The public is always welcome to attend.