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Scooping up after the Mesa County Fair
Sunday morning found my family loading up rabbit cages, stacking up chairs and folding tables for storage at the Mesa County Fairgrounds.
After fair, it’s all-hands-on-deck for all exhibitors to help with clean-up. It’s that kind of work ethic that endears 4-H to me.
Fair Ambassador and ambivalent tiara-wearer Megan McKee, 15, said it best in a story last Saturday: “If you’re in 4-H, you aren’t a high-maintenance girl.”
Reporters Melinda Mawdsley and Samantha Stiles were all over fair coverage this year. (Did you see the video of 5-foot-1 Melinda with a 15-foot python around her neck? Now that’s entertainment.)
Photographer Dean Humphrey was on the grounds nearly every day and brought back some amazing photos of exhibitors and their animals, and bull-riding.
Photographer Gretel Daugherty’s shots of the livestock auction Saturday captured all the conflicted emotion that comes with making money and parting with animals.
Just about everyone in this newsroom had a hand in fair coverage at one time or another.
Enjoy the slide show from this year’s event, and see you at the fair next year.
Fifty-one weeks and counting until we unpack those cages, chairs and tables.
Comments
By Lynn
July 29, 2008 3:40 PM | Link to this
Those photos that Gret took and Melinda’s story had me bawling Sunday morning! How sad, but what a fact of life for those kids. I admire those 4H’ers for sure.
By Laurena
July 30, 2008 1:58 PM | Link to this
I have a neighbor who raises her own beef on lush green pasture, with shade, fresh water, grain and bovine companionship. Every fall when the white box truck rolls up, she feels the same way those 4-H kids did at the livestock sale. But she also told me, “All of our animals have great lives right up to the end.” I think that’s a responsible way to view animal raising and, for the rest of us, animal consumption.