Hartford Independent Fair on the horizon

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

The 154th Annual Hart­ford Inde­pen­dent Fair opens Sun­day, August 5, and runs through Sat­ur­day, August 11. For the unini­ti­ated, the Hart­ford Fair is one of seven inde­pen­dent fairs in Ohio. Billed as “The BIGGEST Lit­tle Fair in the World”, year after year the seven-day event draws record crowds. Last year, over 200,000 pay­ing fair-goers came through the gates.

Each day from Sun­day through the fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day offers a full sched­ule of fair activ­i­ties. FFA and 4-H mem­bers will show projects and sell project ani­mals; mul­ti­ple venues will fea­ture music, har­ness rac­ing, fun con­tests for chil­dren, edu­ca­tional dis­plays and other family-oriented activities.

Each evening the fair­ground grand­stand offers free enter­tain­ment. Sun­day, August 5, fea­tures the ever-popular school bus races and pickup truck races on a chal­leng­ing figure-8 track. On Mon­day, August 6, David Nail and Michael Car­roll will light up the grand­stand with coun­try music enter­tain­ment; and on Tues­day evening fans can see an OSTPA sanc­tioned truck and trac­tor pull.

Wednes­day, August 8, is Demo­li­tion Derby night, Thurs­day fea­tures Moto-Cross rac­ing, on Fri­day evening the pop­u­lar Rough Truck Con­test is held, and the 154th Hart­ford Fair’s grand­stand enter­tain­ment closes with the Sat­ur­day, August 11, Cham­pi­onship Horse Pull.

Fair board sec­re­tary Larry Hughes, who also serves as fair man­ager, said a few new ele­ments have been added to enter­tain­ment this year.

“We added the pickup truck race to the school bus races on the fig­ure eight track, and the horse pull will include a pony pull this year to add a lit­tle more to the shows,” Hughes said. “We’re hop­ing these added fea­tures draws more peo­ple, and makes the events more fun and interesting.”

Hughes said the fair­ground has no new build­ings this year, but the fair board, staff and vol­un­teers have been mak­ing cos­metic and con­ve­nience upgrades to the grounds.

“As we get nearer to the fair every year there’s a lot of main­te­nance work,” Hughes said. “There’s a new donated wind­mill installed at the Nat­ural Resource Area that’s used to aer­ate the pond, and a but­ter­fly gar­den has been added to the resource area. We’ve also paved all five gates to make it eas­ier for fair patrons to get through.”

Want to camp for the week dur­ing the Hart­ford Fair? Hughes said bring your check­book and reserve a camp­site for 2013.

“The camp­ground is full like always, all the fair­grounds’ 383 per­ma­nent camp­sites are reserved already,” Hughes said. “We had 221 peo­ple in the camp­site lot­tery for spots that were not reserved and all of those spots are now gone. We add a few camp­sites each year, and we still need more.”

Hughes said mem­bers of the Hart­ford Fair Board and fair staff are hop­ing the weather coop­er­ates and the rain holds off from August 5 through 11. If it gets warm, he encour­ages fair goers to visit the air-conditioned 4-H Build­ing where they can they can take a break, cool off, and enjoy 4-H and Boy Scout exhibits.

“We’d like to invite every­body to come out for the 154th Hart­ford Inde­pen­dent Fair,” Hughes said. “The gate has not been raised, it’s still $6, park­ing is free, and there will be rides, fair foods, arts and crafts, har­ness rac­ing, and 4-H and FFA project exhibits – every­thing you need for a family-oriented day at the fair.”

For a com­plete sched­ule of events at the August 5 though August 11 Hart­ford Inde­pen­dent Fair go to the fair’s web­site at < hartfordfair.com > and click on Schedule.

The Hart­ford Fair is located at 14028 Fair­grounds Road, Croton.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jul 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.