Due to COVID-19 concerns, the Webster County Fair Board has chosen to continue with the fair, July 8 through July 12, but in a more restricted capacity.

On Tuesday, Webster County Fair Board President Cory Krug confirmed that the vendors, exhibits, carnival and free entertainment normally enjoyed by visitors at the fair have been canceled. However, he said, the fair board currently plans to still have the grandstand events and the 4-H and Future Farmers of America livestock and static judging events.

“They’ll still get to present to the judges and get their ribbons,” Krug said of the FFA students and 4-H’ers. “Our livestock shows are just going to be bringing the animal through the arena and going back out. They’re not going to be any animals in the barns or anything like that.”

For the grandstand events, the fair will feature Figure 8 races on Wednesday night, a motorcycle challenge course on Thursday night, a UTV (utility task vehicle) and tough truck race on Friday night, and an open truck pull on Saturday night.

-Messenger file photo by Hans Madsen
Harley Eckert, then 12, of Lehigh, right, gets a little help from her friend Bella Pudenz, then 12, of Callender, with the braids on her horse’s mane before going into the arena for the horse show at the 2018 Webster County Fair. Eckert participated in eight events with her horse “Chevall.”

“That’s based on the governor’s current guidelines that race events can happen and we have enough volunteers to help with that and the space to spread out enough to be safe for people,” Krug said.

As of Tuesday, the fair board plans to crown a fair king and queen, but will not be doing the Little Miss and Little Mister contest.

All open shows, where community members can enter work and projects for judging, have been canceled as well.

“Nobody specifically directed us to do one thing or another,” Krug said. “We worked with Webster County Public Health, Webster County Emergency Management, to review what we’re doing with them, making sure we’re following the social distancing guidelines from the governor.”

Krug said he isn’t sure about how many 4-H’ers and FFA students will register for the fair shows, but typically there are “at least a couple hundred kids involved,” which is why the board felt it was important to move forward with some version of the county fair, even with the fate of the Iowa State Fair still up in the air.

-Messenger file photo by Chad Thompson
Layne Condon, then 3, of Clare, ropes himself a bull at the Webster County Fair in 2018. Brooke Bindle, of Dayton, a roping instructor, looks on.

“The primary reason we hold the fair each year is to show the hard work that 4-H and FFA kids put into these projects and give them a venue to display those,” he said. “The rest of what happens at fairs is built up to bring more people out to see those things happen. But at the end of the day, the core of a fair is about the kids.”

A new schedule of events is being crafted by the fair board, and it will spread the judging events across the five days of the fair, as well as spread out the locations of the events across the fairgrounds to allow for better distancing.

Krug also noted that while this is what the fair board has planned right now, those plans could change between now and early July, depending on the COVID-19 situation and recommendations from state and local officials.

“We’re all volunteers so we’re doing what we can to bring as much as we can with the time we have,” he said.