The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

The Fairgrounds has a new flower bed by the arena! The sun was shining and we just returned from town with a trunk full of pretty flowers when 4-H Horse Leader Tina Merz showed up at the fairgrounds. She wanted to help accomplish a project on the fairgrounds and went right to work putting together a colorful assortment of flowers, nicely arranged in the new flower bed. Thank you, Tina!

For all horse riders that use the fairgrounds arena, it will be closed to all riders from May 28 to June 3. We will be cleaning the arena building area as we prepare it for the Dollars for Scholars Event. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The arena drainage was the priority project last week and it is done! Bill Chamberlain dug the ditch using his backhoe. The pipe was laid out, curved down spouts removed and new pipes fitted into place by Ed Stevens and Chuck Gaines. The ditch was refilled and the area smoothed with some hours of work using our tractors. Thanks to Bill, Ed and Chuck we have completed another big fairgrounds project! Also thanks to Barb Czarnecki and Georgie Billings, they always seem to be around when we need a few more helping hands and join right in to make all the projects easier to complete.

Don’t forget, this Saturday is the Great White Tail Run. Proceeds support Wahkiakum County’s 4-H programs.

Last Saturday a good sized crew of local volunteers arrived at the fairgrounds to build our new bleachers. Pages of plans for the project were distributed to Bill Chamberlain and John Gustafson earlier in the week, as we considered them the best people to try and decipher the drawings. We worked five hours in some hot sun and were very happy when Kay Chamberlain showed up with a pile of sandwiches and other goodies for a much needed break time. Saturday we got both bleachers framed and braced before we called it a day. Ed Stevens continued the work in the cooler evening hours on the bleacher aisle way, a very tricky part of the project. With this done we were ready for the crew to come back on Monday and continue.

Ed, Chuck, Bill and John had to rivet the bleacher bench ends on and then we could attach the bleacher tops to the frame work. Monday's crew was a bit smaller with Bill, John, Ed and Chuck working a long day. As I write this column the bleachers look great sitting in front of our new stage! The crew just needs to attach the side and back guard barriers to complete this huge project.

I really enjoyed working with this nice group of people, they deserve a hand shake and a “Good Job” spoken in their direction. This was not an easy project and basically we laughed and worked our way through a mess of project designs on paper. Thanks to Bill Chamberlain, John Gustafson, Bill Mahitka, Ed Stevens, Chuck Gaines, Kay Chamberlain, Kathy Elliott, Georgie Billings, Barb Czarnecki and Linda Mahitka, we will get it done.

New vendors wanted! Want to be a vendor at the Wahkiakum County Fair? It’s time to give me a call and secure your space. If you were already a vendor at our 2011 Wahkiakum County Fair you will be receiving a vendor contract in the mail very soon.

If you need to gain access to the Fairgrounds contact Fair Manager Becky Ledtke at 560-0371 or you can call the Fairgrounds Office at 360-795-3480 and leave a message.