Step on up — it’s fair time – Austin Daily Herald

Fair kicks off Tuesday with six days of fun

Mower County Fair Board President Kevin Finley took a good-natured poke at our neighbors to the west.

“Best six days of the year,” Finley said Wednesday morning with a smile. “They always say that Freeborn County has the best six days of the summer. I think we have the best six days of the year.”

Mower County’s annual summer celebration will kick off Tuesday and run through Sunday with an array of activities people have come to love and expect.

Across this past week, work was in full swing getting the grounds ready and prepared for the Mower County Fair.

“Things are coming along,” Finley said. “Sounds like we’re going to have good weather compared to the rain we’ve had two, three times a week all summer long.”

The events planned for this year’s fair will for sure be familiar for most and are some of the most anticipated events of the nearly week-long spectacle and it starts with the grand stand events.

Starting Tuesday night will be the traditional grand stand kick-off event, the Motokazie event followed by an up-and-comer in the schedule, autocross.

“Autocross is growing,” Finley said. “We expect a pretty large response to that. Last year it went really well.”

That will be followed by the NTPA Tractor Pull, another popular event, on Thursday leading into the two-day spectacle that is Great Frontier Bull Riding with the addition of some special fun this year.

“As a give back and to honor our promoter, who has been bar none, fantastic, we spent the money a little bit and mini bulls are coming for bull riding this year,” Finley said. “It’s kind of an addition to it. Two hundred pound bulls on up, plus they bring their group of younger riders from nine-years-old and up.”

Grand stand events wrap up on Sunday with the Master of Disasters Demolition Derby. All shows, except for the derby, start at 7 p.m. The derby kicks off the crunch at 2 p.m.

After that, the fair is staying steady on ahead, with the addition of some new food vendors along with attractions like the Thorni Ridge Exotic Petting Zoo and Jurassic Kingdom.

Finley added, however, that the fair will be missing the Draft Horse Show due to timing constraints, but also put in that there will be mini draft horses featuring new species of horses. And on Sunday, in the afternoon, the Budweiser Clydesdales will be making a stop on their way back from Sturgis.

Finley said he was unsure whether they would be harnessed, but people will still be able to see the horses into the final night of the fair.

And of course, there are the age related events that have drawn families and friends together for years.

“The fair is like a big family reunion,” Finley said. “There are people you see once a year and you see them at the fair. For a lot of these folks it’s a kind of family vacation for them. It’s cool to be a part of that or see the little kid that’s wheeling down the blacktop that’s eight years old and won his first ribbon. That’s one of the cool things, knowing you made that happen.”

With that in mind, it’s easy to see the Mower County Fair as a sort of comfort. A reassuring sign of summer.

Even though there aren’t any real big new items, Finley said the fair is always on the lookout for something that can add to the overall appeal of what the fair offers from year to year.

As he describes it, these are the things that are popular and adding elements such as pull-tabs which will be in the beer gardens this year, it only adds to what the fair has been to people over the years.

“If there is something that runs its course or just isn’t as exciting as it is, we’ll look for something to try and replace that,” Finley said. “If we can add something new, something different, we’re always looking for that.”

“We’re all on the same grounds and we’re here for the betterment of the community,” he added.