Photos Courtesy of McLean County Fair

by Douglas Edwin

This July 30th through August 3rd, the McLean County Fair is coming to town.

Over the last five to ten years the fair has averaged around 40,000 visitors, but saw a large spike in attendance last year, with around 49,000 visitors, thanks to great weather.

The fair hopes that the weather will continue to cooperate this year, and bring even more people.

Since 1992 the staff of the McLean County Farm Bureau has worked each year to put the fair together.

The key to putting on a successful fair comes down to four principle areas; 4-H projects, free on- grounds entertainment, fair food, and the carnival.

With almost 10,000 projects exhibited by 900 kids, the 4-H projects are a large part of the fair.

“4-H is a youth development based program,” Mike Swartz, McLean County Fair and Farm Bureau Manager, said. “They work on projects throughout the year that they bring to the fair to exhibit.”

The multitude of projects come in a variety of areas.

“There are projects in clothing, cooking, baking, electronics, computers, robotics, woodworking, art, drawing, photography, and more,” Swartz said. “Basically, if you can think of something that we do in life, there is a project area for it.”

In the year-long program, kids participate in monthly club meetings where they learn to develop many life skills.

“If you go to many great leaders in the world, they’ll often say they started their career in some sort of youth development program,” Swartz said. “Many started in 4-H, which is the largest youth development program in the United States.”

The free on-grounds entertainment is also a crucial part of attracting people to the fair.

Some of the free entertainment at this years fair includes the Grandpa Cratchet Puppet Theatre, Hambone Express Pig Races, Nascar Simulator and The Swamp Master Gator Show.

“The Swamp Master actually gets in the water and wrestles a gator,” Swartz said. “He makes it educational as well, by talking about alligators as he handles them.”

Another part of the educational entertainment is the Food and Farm Fun Zone, which won a national award two years ago.

“We’ve been developing the exhibit over the last five or six years,” Swartz said. “We try the best we can to create a fun children’s museum type of program that teaches kids about agriculture, what happens on the farm, and producing food for our urban neighbors.”

The exhibit features hands-on activities including such things as a combine simulator, a full sized plastic dairy cow you can milk, videos of what it is like to be in a crop sprayer, and much more.

Even with all the 4-H projects, free entertainment, and carnival rides, a fair wouldn’t be complete without the food.

“If there’s anything I regularly hear people talk about, it is the fair food,” Swartz said. “People just can’t wait to come get some funnel cake, corn dogs, and that kind of stuff.”

The carnival is open on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 1pm until 11pm. On Saturday it is open from 12pm until 11pm and on Sunday from 12pm until 10pm.

The county fair takes place at 1106 Interstate Drive in Bloomington and is open from 6am until 9pm Wednesday through Sunday.

For a full list of all the events taking place throughout the week you can visit the fair’s website at http://www.mcleancountyfair.org.