Hartford Independent Fair opens Sunday

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

The 154th Annual Hart­ford Inde­pen­dent Fair opens this 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, rac­ing, con­tests for chil­dren, edu­ca­tional dis­plays and other family-oriented activities.

Each evening the fair­ground grand­stand offers free enter­tain­ment. This year, Grammy nom­i­nated coun­try singer song­writer David Nail and coun­try artist Jason Michael Car­roll will per­form at 7:30 p.m. on Mon­day, August 6, in the Grandstand.

David Nail was born and raised in Ken­nett, Mis­souri, where his father was a high school band direc­tor. In 2002 Nail debuted the sin­gle “Mem­phis” for Mer­cury Records Nashville. Five years later, he signed with MCA Nashville and in August 2009 released the album “I’m About to Come Alive”. It pro­duced three sin­gles: the title track, Red Light and Turn­ing Home. The lat­ter two sin­gles reached Top 20. Nail’s sec­ond stu­dio album, “The Sound of a Mil­lion Dreams”, was released in Novem­ber 2011 and pro­duced the num­ber one hit Let it Rain.

Jason Michael Car­roll was born in Hous­ton, Texas, and grew up in North Car­olina. After being dis­cov­ered at a local tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion in 2004, Car­roll was signed to Arista Nashville. He released his debut album “Waitin’ in the Coun­try” in 2006. That album pro­duced three con­sec­u­tive Top 40 hits — “Alyssa Lies”, Livin’ Our Love Song and I Can Sleep When I’m Dead. Carroll’s sec­ond album, “Grow­ing Up Is Get­ting Old”, pro­duced two addi­tional Top 40 hits, Where I’m From and Hurry Home. His lat­est album, “Num­bers”, is fea­tured exclu­sively through The Cracker Bar­rel Old Coun­try Stores.

All grand­stand seats are free of charge. For paid seats on the race­track in front of the stage go to < hartfordfair.com >, click Enter­tain­ment, and at the bot­tom of the page click to buy tickets.

Real Hart­ford Fair afi­ciona­dos will be at the fair­grounds at 7 p.m., Sat­ur­day, August 4, for the 2012 Hart­ford Fair King & Queen Con­test. There will be no charge to enter the fair­grounds on Sat­ur­day evening, and some food ven­dors will already be open for business.

Sun­day, August 5, fea­tures the ever-popular school bus races and pickup truck races on a chal­leng­ing figure-8 track; 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 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.”

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 the 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, 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. Gen­eral Gate Admis­sion (Does not include rides) is $6 from Sun­day, August 5, through Sat­ur­day, August 11 (chil­dren 7 and under free). On Mon­day, August 6, from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Senior Cit­i­zens can enter for $3. Admis­sion is free on Sat­ur­day, August 4, for the 7 p.m. Hart­ford Fair King & Queen Con­test in the Pavil­ion. Park­ing is free (a week-long pre­ferred park­ing pass is avail­able for $20) and all grand­stand events are free on a first come, first serve basis.

The Hart­ford Fair Office is near the fair­ground south entrance. Office Hours dur­ing Fair Week only are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. For addi­tional infor­ma­tion call (740) 893‑4881; Fax: (740) 893‑4810; or email < hartfordfair@embarqmail.com >.

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.