Star-spangled fun: A happy week at the Jacktown Fair
Colleen Nelson
Greene County 4-H’ers and their leaders playing bingo as Prem Trollop calls the numbers did their part to raise scholarship dollars for the West Greene Scholarship fund.
Colleen Nelson
A wagon pulled by a pair of Belgium horses bears a tribute banner to Jacktown Fair honorary parade marshal Charles “Bud” Behm and his wife, Kitty.
Colleen Nelson
The Magic Carpet Ride is silhouetted against a dusk sky at the Jacktown Fair.
Colleen Nelson
This year’s West Greene scholarship winner Trevor Triplett and granger Thelma Szarell help with bingo. Trevor will be attending West Virginia University in the fall.
Colleen Nelson
Buck Burns and Jim Rizor, the “old guard” of the Jacktown Fair
Colleen Nelson
Jacktown Fair Parade winner marches along the parade route.
Colleen Nelson
Jacktown Fair Queen Marissa Tharp is a bingo winner.
Colleen Nelson
Best of show entries are on display at the fair.
Colleen Nelson
Grace Kovach of Jefferson 4-H small animal club explains how animals are auctioned.
Colleen Nelson
The Community Foundation of Greene County presented a check to 4-H Livestock Clubs to assist with various fees for entering market animals at the Jacktown Fair.
“You can’t die happy ’til you’ve been to the Jacktown Fair!” is the traditional shout-out to the fun to be had on a star-spangled evening on a grassy hilltop studded with lights and carnival rides, eating fair food on the midway and browsing barns full of superstar critters and 4-H kids.
This is the spot near the historic village of Wind Ridge – aka Jacktown – where folks have been gathering, picnicking, horse-racing and showcasing their agricultural best-picks every year since 1866. Considered the longest continuously running country fair in the United States, the Jacktown Fair has earned its bragging rights as a bucket list destination.
But did you ever wonder what kind of happy you would be if you spent the whole week there, maybe longer – helping make it happen?
“A beginner!” Amanda Burns, wife of fair board president Walter “Buck” Burns told me with a grin when I asked. “Try doing it for 50 years!”
Sure, I was already ready to die happy – I’ve been going to the fair for decades, both as a fan and as a member of Harveys-Aleppo Grange. We’re part of the community that helps make it happen. But this would be the first year I signed on to be there every day and stay until closing.
I was about to become a beginner.
The call to duty came on July 10 when parade organizer Marcia Sonneborn texted – would I be a float judge on Tuesday, July 18, when the fair opened with a parade through Wind Ridge?
Well, of course! Being there to take it all in as the trucks, tractors, hay wagons, teams of horses, ponies and mules roll in and countless kids decked out in sports uniforms, western gear and cute costumes scramble to finish their floats is a big part of the backstage excitement of getting ready for the show.
Actually, getting ready starts in late January, when the fair board begins booking the entertainment. And setup begins in earnest on the Saturday before the parade.
We grangers were there as the ride trucks and food wagons came rolling in on that muggy morning, ready to set up the bingo hall in the oldest building still standing. After lunch it would be time to head over to the Home and Garden Department exhibit hall to set up our grange display. Most of us would return every night to run the bingo games that bring in the scholarship funds for West Greene students; some of us would also be volunteer docents in the modern new exhibit hall.
Entries from the community at large would arrive at the hall on Sunday after on-site church services, the best of the best from the gardens, flowerbeds, creative minds and kitchen wizardry of those who consider the Jacktown Fair a family reunion. I skipped Sunday because I wasn’t entering anything this year, but my old friend Prem Trollop, in for the summer from London to visit friends across the country, was excited to enter one of her pieces of fused glass. She would help call bingo every evening, charming players with her British accent as she had in 2018 when she first came to call bingo with her grange friends and fell in love with the fair.
This year’s parade lived up to its theme, “Growing the Future.” The CNX Foundation Mentorship float was loaded with kids tossing rubber duckies to celebrate the academy that is available for Greene County juniors and seniors looking for a career path into industrial jobs; this year’s bumper crop of lifeguards from nearby Ryerson Station State Park had fruit juice popsicles for thirsty kids and a cheerful reminder the new pool and water park is fully staffed and open every day.
It was also a celebration of the past. As a white wagon pulled by a pair of Belgium horses passed through the front gates, Buck Burns announced that the grand marshal of the parade was board member Charles “Bud” Behm, who died November 15, 2022, at age 96. As the last vehicle came through the gates tossing candy, I joined the streams of visitors heading up the steps to the top of the hill, where families were lining up for $10 wristbands to ride all evening at the otherwise free country fair. The enticing smell of peppers, onions and sweet sausage on the grill let me know that Mr. Horstman’s fine food and cold drinks were back for another year.
Prem was already calling numbers as I headed for the exhibit hall to spend the evening watching Clover Bud pre-4-H kids rush in to find their ribbons, to watch first-time visitors ooh and aah over the rich harvest of everyday talent on every shelf and wall, to answer questions about FFA, 4-H and Grange and laugh with neighbors and friends.
The history of the fair is on display here every year – prizewinning paintings of fair scenes of the past on the wall, exhibition booklets dating back to 1915, fair memorabilia, plates, T-shirts and old photos in glass cases.
That evening the hot humid air rose up to meet the clouds crosshatching the setting sun and suddenly rain pelted down, driving dozens off the midway and through the doors into the air-conditioned exhibit hall, steaming, dripping and laughing. The, just as suddenly, it was over and within the hour fireworks were soaring to celebrate Day One of the Jacktown Fair.
The days between Tuesday and Saturday are where true muscle memories are made for those who camp out for the duration to tend to their 4-H show ring stars and finish up with the Friday auctions of their market goats, lambs and rabbits.
I arrived early each afternoon before my docent shift, waving my pass at the upcoming seniors from local high schools getting their community service hours the fun way. Driving through the gate I would park where the road tapers along the hilltop to the entrance of the grandstand. Below the grandstand is the broad field where tractor pulls, demo derbies and big truck challenges would fill the parking lot to overflowing every night. There would be free shuttle buses running throughout the week taking visitors up and down the hill, courtesy of the Jacktown Fair and its scores of local sponsors.
The big fans were humming in the barns as crowds wandered through the aisles of family farm entrees, with ribbons fluttering over pens of sheep, goats, steers and horses. When I stopped by on Wednesday, the cluster of rabbit pens were decked with ribbons won by the many categories of breeds that 4-H Small Animal Club members entered. The upcoming sale on Friday would attract hefty winning bids to be added to budding college accounts.
To those who make the winning bid, “you give gifts – and this,” 11-year-old Grace Kovach of Jefferson explained, picking up a glass jar of candy and a big card identifying her and her rabbits and the community that supports 4-H kids. “And we thank them!”
Executive Director Dave Calvario and board member Corbly Orndorff of the Community Foundation of Greene County came before the sale to present the 4-H Livestock Clubs with a donation to assist with various fees for entering all market animals at the Jacktown Fair. Another presentation would be made in a few weeks to those entering their steers at the Greene County Fair and later at the swine sale at the county fairgrounds in October.
We were on country fair time now, a slow motion summer stride through long afternoons cleaning pens, watering critters, huge helpings of french fries loaded every which way shared by families, live music in the gazebo next to the bingo hall, sitting on benches chatting up strangers and neighbors, singing along to another heartfelt cover of Country Roads, that kind of country fair time.
“I started parking cars here when I was 16 years old,” longtime fair board member Jim Rizor told me when we met up on the midway. Back in the 1950s, “you didn’t have so many things, trucks with racks would pick up neighbors, they’d bring their own food and spread blankets, local school bands would play on top of the old band stand. On the lower track there were horse races and we’d walk from side to side to watch.”
You have to be there all those days to know the reason there’s fireworks on Thursday evening as well: All the animals have been judged and this is the night when the 4-H kids get to have some serious fun. On Friday, their year of feeding and caring and everyday learning and growing with their project animals will get its payoff in the sale ring. Thursday is their day to enjoy the fair.
When the Greene County 4-Hers and their parents and club leaders hit the bingo hall waving their daubers and chanting “And Bingo was his name, WHOO!” with every win, the scholarship donations began flow. “This is their vacation, let them have fun!” bemused dad Buddy Pecjac of Ali-Pec Farms said, reaching in his pocket for another fistful of dollars.
That night thunder and lightning chased us home on country roads, dropped tons of water before dawn, then left us with beautiful sunny days and amazing sunsets for the rest of the fair and into teardown Sunday.
Another year of doing the Jacktown Fair is now tucked away in the storage rooms at the grange, in the fair buildings and in the hearts, minds and well-exercised muscles of all of us who were there to make it happen.
What can I tell you? There’s a whole lot more to dying happy than meets the eye.
Stop by next year and lend a hand. You’ll find out!