Lake Forest State Fair

How fortunate we are to have the Delaware State Fair in Harrington.

It involves so many of our children and their families in positive, productive, constructive activities; not only for that 10-day period, but often for the entire year. Teachers and staff members get involved as well, whether it’s in the Kids Zone or the Needlepoint Show, Pete’s or the sheep barn - Lake Forest Spartans are everywhere.

We are a rural community with strong agricultural roots and you’ll find many of our people in the show barns. You’ll also see them doing public speaking through 4-H, exhibiting their photography or sewing, and helping out at a family exhibit or church-run food venue. You’ll find a lot of Spartans on the ice rink, too.

I first got to know the state fair experience through 4-H forty years ago. Each summer for four years during college, I worked for West Virginia University Extension. I managed 4-H camps all over the state and finished the summer at the state fair in Lewisburg in August. The first summer I worked in the youth exhibit hall and at night I was assigned to sleep in the loft of the sheep barn to keep an eye on the 4-H and FFA boys who would be using those bunks. There was nothing between us and the sheep, and the general public, but chicken wire.

Those folks that live at the fair all week long are a special breed. You have to love it or you wouldn’t be there. I’m not sure what does it for me -the people, the reunions, the smell of the hay, the funnel cake. I always met girls at the fair. Maybe it was the oppressive heat, the dirt rings around my neck, the smell of manure or the limited opportunity to see to personal hygiene.

You can’t spend any time at the fair without developing some lifelong friends and lifetime memories. Back in my day, the favorite grandstand shows were acts like The Beach Boys, The Statler Brothers and Up With People. Some of my most indelible memories involve finding and reuniting families with lost children, getting knocked over (along with a table full of ribbons and trophies) by a couple of fighting boar hogs, showering through a garden hose next to a Holstein steer and being one of the first ones to walk the grounds as the sun came up on a brisk summer morning.

The Delaware State Fair belongs to everyone in Delaware and we are so lucky to have it right here in our front yard. Sure, it is great for the local economy, but, for the children who spend the week, it is even greater. They learn more about their interests and learn more about themselves than they would in any other environment.

They grow. They gain independence. They become leaders. They learn responsibility. They mature. They become better Spartans. They don’t know it, but they become better students because of the fair.