IT’S WORLD’S FAIR TIME—
Bellville’s South Main St. (above) is awash in the blue of the merchant’s tent Monday as a Toledo crew prepares to raise it for the opening of this year’s 158th celebration of the street fair. That would be consecutive years, but, the fair was cancelled one year during World War II.
The event which opens its four day run today is commonly known locally as the Bellville World’s Fair. It remains only one of two bona fide, agriculturally oriented street fairs remaining in Ohio. The other is in Loudonville.
In the small photo to the right an amusement company worker busies himself with ride construction under a sky as blue as the merchant tent.
Longtime fair board member Bob McConkie and this year’s president along with wife Barb estimated from 300 to 500 local folks likely are required to arrange, manage and clean-up from this four-day, annual social event of the valley.
They quipped, “The 16 fair board members usually recruit family and friends to pitch in and at a half-dozen or more “volunteers” of that sort each, there are more than 100 folks alone.”
Add the village and township staffs, the volunteer firemen, the FFA students from the high school and all those family volunteers, and, their estimate began to sound quite realistic.
They were busy Monday preparing to receive entries in the old fire station on Main St.
Fair Treasurer Ellen Walker grappled with a question from a visiting concessionaire and telephoned a disgruntled exhibitor who evidently failed to read the plainly displayed instructions for entries—all in the few minutes I stopped by her fair office.
In the lower image Clear Fork High School FFA students* busy themselves with the installation of pens in the animal tent—the white dome visible in the background of the upper photo—toward the far end of Main St.
Bellville’s South Main St. (above) is awash in the blue of the merchant’s tent Monday as a Toledo crew prepares to raise it for the opening of this year’s 158th celebration of the street fair. That would be consecutive years, but, the fair was cancelled one year during World War II.
The event which opens its four day run today is commonly known locally as the Bellville World’s Fair. It remains only one of two bona fide, agriculturally oriented street fairs remaining in Ohio. The other is in Loudonville.
In the small photo to the right an amusement company worker busies himself with ride construction under a sky as blue as the merchant tent.
Longtime fair board member Bob McConkie and this year’s president along with wife Barb estimated from 300 to 500 local folks likely are required to arrange, manage and clean-up from this four-day, annual social event of the valley.
They quipped, “The 16 fair board members usually recruit family and friends to pitch in and at a half-dozen or more “volunteers” of that sort each, there are more than 100 folks alone.”
Add the village and township staffs, the volunteer firemen, the FFA students from the high school and all those family volunteers, and, their estimate began to sound quite realistic.
They were busy Monday preparing to receive entries in the old fire station on Main St.
Fair Treasurer Ellen Walker grappled with a question from a visiting concessionaire and telephoned a disgruntled exhibitor who evidently failed to read the plainly displayed instructions for entries—all in the few minutes I stopped by her fair office.
In the lower image Clear Fork High School FFA students* busy themselves with the installation of pens in the animal tent—the white dome visible in the background of the upper photo—toward the far end of Main St.
*FFA stands for Future Farmers of America for the benefit of you city folks.
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