THE SPECTATOR – THE WASHINGTON COUNTY FAIR

  

Another year of the Washington County Fair has come and gone…the 147th and oldest in Texas….but the second guessing and social commentary linger on.  Some people are complaining about the entertainment….others about the cost of admission to the VIP room and the food and drink offerings there…and some are complaining about the noise from the helicopter rides.  Lost in all of the complaints is the fact that the Junior Livestock Auction set a new record with over $810,000 in sales.  Together with the Commercial Steer and Commercial Heifer Sales, over $2.4 million was spent on animals at this year’s Washington County Fair.  In a year when hundreds of local people were laid off or furloughed in the ice cream, oil patch and manufacturing industries, that’s a real testament to the strength of our business community.

Can improvements be made to the Fair?  Certainly.  I believe the Fair Board needs to consider whether it’s worth it to have entertainment on Thursday night.  It doesn’t seem to matter who they book for Thursday night, no one shows up to hear them.  As for the VIP room, that’s a nice perk for sponsors….and no one is forced to purchase tickets to it if they don’t want to.  As for the helicopter….I’m sure it was a unique experience for the many folks who chose to ride it.  But it did tend to get annoying after a while, and probably should not be an every year occurrence.  I suggest that if you have ideas for improvements or changes to the Fair, contact a member of the Fair Board, or volunteer to serve on a committee that interests you.  It takes hundreds of people and lots of hard work to pull off a weeklong event attended by more than 50,000 people.  Kudos to all of those who served and worked on it.

One last thing about this year’s Washington County Fair.  A young lady from Burton, Rhealee Spies, was rewarded with a bit of redemption.  Two years after her Reserve Champion Steer was disqualified for having antibiotics in its system, Rhealee’s Grand Champion Steer sold for a record $23,000 at the auction.  Although a local businessman waged a public war with the Fair Association over the disqualification, and to this day has not cashed the refunded $7250 check he wanted them to award her, Rhealee persevered.  Her steer sold for more than triple that amount.

I leave you with these three clichés:  “Life isn’t always fair.”  “Rules are rules.”  And “Hard work pays off”.

And that’s the way it looks to this Spectator.