If Lake County Fair Family Arts Superintendent Andrea Fox had to pick a favorite set-up day, Wednesday Food Day is the best of the best.
Starting early, people start bringing in their pies, cakes, cookies, jams and other confections to the Family Arts building for judging. It could be pride or massive sugar consumption – or most likely a little bit of both – but Fox said the entrants are always just so happy.
“They’re always excited to bring in the food,” Fox said as workers continued to whip the building into fair-worthy shape Tuesday afternoon. “They could be bringing their own recipes, or a lot of people come in and tell us it was their grandma’s recipe, and if they win, they’re winning for Grandma.”
Fox said Family Arts fans will see plenty of new items and new ways of looking at the old favorites on the judging list when the fair opens its gates Friday. A fair devotee, attendee and eventual fair administrator since she was 12, the lifelong quilter spends a lot of her off time asking people what they want to see the following year.
“I love this building, and I want to see it shine,” she said. “I speak to different groups to let them know what projects we have available, and then I ask what they’d like to see. I also check with other fairs to see what they do and how we can improve.”
One thing Fox noticed at other fairs is their categorizations are often narrow. For example, other fairs are content to have the one category, which might mean one entry per person.
Fox sees no fun in that.
“If someone makes jam, of course they make other flavors. Why not, then, have categories for several flavors and allow people to enter in all of them?” She said. “That means there’s more opportunity for people to be successful.”
And if they’re more successful, they want to enter more, goes Fox’s theory.
“People like to win,” she said.
And just because the exhibits showcase tried-and-true skills doesn’t mean people want to see the same old thing. As such, Fox is always on the lookout to tweak exhibit criteria to keep it interesting.
“Times change, and people come up with different ways of doing things. We want to highlight them, too,” she said. “In the quilting world, throws have become more popular, so this year, we’ve broken them into subcategories like applique or piece work, or combinations of different techniques. We’ve also added a couple antique categories; one woman won the Sweepstakes in marbles using her grandfather’s.”
It remained to be seen whether Fox would best the current all-time Family Arts exhibit record of 905 set in 2004 – as of Tuesday, she was at 849, according to fair spokeswoman Arlene Marcinek. But she was up for the challenge.
“I’m competitive,” she said, laughing.
The first Lake County Fair was held in 1852.
Marcinek said fairgoers will be able to sample every food vendor it has to offer on Friday, when they’ll offer $2 portions in a new feature called Frugal Friday, plus there’ll be a lot more woodworking than ever, which is something fair administrators are thrilled to encourage.
“One year, we had a calf born that we weren’t expecting, and that was fun,” Marcinek said. “You really don’t have to spend a ton of money to have a great day here, though. “We’re free until 3 p.m., and you can bring in a picnic lunch and tour all the buildings and see all the shows. It’s good value for a whole day.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
