The Harrison County Fair is now in the history books and I hope I did my part in creating a few stories and pictures for the 4-H members, 4-H committee and fair board. I know many will leave a lasting impression on me.
I learned that Helena Gladman, part of the junior fair royalty, performed with the All Ohio Youth Choir and was a part of the honor choir for two years. She plans to go into musical theater now that she has graduated from high school.
Some 4-H members go into the organization quite young. Charles Fulton of the Kountry Kids and Kristen Wright of the Country Cousins are graduating from their clubs after 14 years. When you consider that they are only 18 years old, 4-H age, which I could never understand, they have been members since they were just past 4 years old.
Going to the Harrison County Fair baked goods auction is always a fun event for me. Auctioneers Steve and Billy Birney, not brothers, but Billy tells me Steve is a relative further out on the vine, remind me of a Bud Abbott and Lou Costello movie.
Billy would toss Steve a loaf of bread for the public to see while he tried to get a nice price. Then Steve would go into an O.J. Simpson football pose and pretend to throw it to the buyer. Of course they couldn't do that with a pie or sheet cake.
Mark Horn of Hopedale had a very nice raspberry pie that took first-place honors and brought $40 in the auction and a first-place jar of strawberry jam that brought $12 for the fair board, which would apply the money to any improvements and repairs on the grounds.
A raspberry cobbler baked by Tenley Telfer brought $160 from a group of about six bidders. I know that Billy Birney was in on that bid.
Melodee Hyde's pecan pie took $40, a pumpkin pie brought $30 and her interesting Jello cookies sold for $27.50.
I thought a fleecy John Deere tractor blanket would be of interest to our 6-year-old grandson, Jackson, but I saw Alex Chrisman bidding in earnest for the throw and decided to back off. She got it for $32.50. Dolores Spragg entered it, received a blue ribbon and donated it for the sale.
Spragg and Hyde both won Ball Canning Awards. Dolores got hers for canned applesauce, and Melodee took the same honors for canned green tomatoes.
Lisa Kendziorski, Lynette Dauch and Sandi Thompson purchased cookies from the sale and tried to pass them off as their own. Their husbands knew the difference though.
They got plenty of mileage from three plaster-cast, painted plaques that were purchased by Lisa.
First they decorated the fair board office of Tina Jones, fair secretary, with a plaque. Then Sandi was surprised to find the plaque hanging in the dairy barn over a Thompson cow the next day.
Two plaques mysteriously appeared on a shelf in the new 4-H and dairy concession stand as well.
It didn't end there, Sandi and Devanie Gladman unwrapped a basket Tina purchased in a Chinese auction and put the smaller plaque at the bottom of the merchandise. They were trying to envision Tina's look of surprise when removing the cellophane from the basket and finding the roving plaque.
As Sandi relates, the saga will probably continue at the 2012 fair and go on for many years.
Lisa Kendziorski clued me in about 4-H members having a cooling off session with a water slide at the bottom of the hill by the trailer park, and I went sliding down to investigate.
In taking the picture, I stepped back on wet grass and about joined the youngsters in getting wet. Then I discovered that trying to walk up a steep hill in flip-flops is a real task, as your feet keep slipping out of the shoes.
At the livestock auction, the younger 4-H members passed out water, sodas and bags of popcorn, corn chips and potato chips. There were some very young members urging buyers to have a few snacks or a cold drink. One young man, Jack Shuss, had a smile on his face the entire evening, even though it was hot and the building was crowded.
I asked his name, and I thought he said Jackson, with that being our grandson's name, too. When he went into the livestock ring to sell his animal, I saw that it was Jack Shuss. Say it to yourself. Doesn't it sound like Jackson? If it doesn't, you have to understand that it is very noisy with the auction going on.
I met Jack McCoy, owner of the Ormes Hardware in Cadiz, who bought many animals. He came over to our bench to ask where Lamont came from and said he came to Harrison County from Cambridge. There are six Ormes hardware stores, and the company was founded in 1869.
Alleigh Amaismeier sold her first-ever dairy basket at the auction. The family moved to the Blue Ridge Road area near Hopedale from Toronto, and Doug Caldwell tells me that she is interested in 4-H.
While talking to Doug in the dairy barn, a 4-H member came through with a cow swinging her tail, practically wrapping it around his neck.
Drew Dawson told me his dairy cow has only half a tail. He selected her as he thought it was original.
The Harrison Central High School Band Boosters endured the hot weather to collect money for tickets at the fairgrounds gates. They were all polite and friendly despite the heat.
I learned that Lamont knew Joe Meyers, who is the Harrison County sheriff, from his bowling days in Jewett. Joe was the buyer of many animals at the auction.
I'm still looking with pride at the handmade bench that was presented to me as a Friend of 4-H at the fair. This will be my big memory of the 2011 fair.
(McCoy, a resident of Smithfield, is food editor and a staff columnist for the Herald-Star and the Weirton Daily Times. She can be contacted at emccoy@heraldstaronline.com.)
