The first Kansas State Fair was in 1913 and there has been one every year, until this year. All the state fairs in the U.S. have been canceled this year due to the Corona Virus. I will miss the fair this year but it’s a wise choice to keep everyone safe from the Corona virus.
Because none of the states are having their state fairs this year, that will certainly help keep the virus from spreading from state to state as the carnival made the rounds. Kansas is one of the last fairs the carnival works every year, so there would have been lots of chances for their workers to be exposed along the way and to give it to many of the Kansas residents.
Every year there were tags from every county in Kansas parked around the fair grounds and on Main Street. It is much safer for the whole state not to have the fair this year. We’ll just have to dream about the corn dogs, roasted corn on the cob, roasted peanuts and Cotton Candy and hope it will be back next year so we can enjoy them.
When I was growing up in western Kansas, my parents never brought us to the fair. Mom had never been to the Kansas State Fair until she moved to Hutchinson after my dad passed away in 1972. She was only in her mid 50’s when she moved up here so she was still able to walk around the fair with me.
She certainly enjoyed some of the foods she had never eaten before and she really enjoyed all the exhibits and the women’s building with the sewing and all the foods and crafts on display. Sometimes she wanted to stay and look at all the foods and crafts and sewing a lot longer than I did, but I gave her time to look at everything in the building.
One year I bought tickets and took her to see the Statler Brothers show. It was the first live show she had ever seen and it was my first time to see them in person. We both had a great time at the show, but it was a long walk for her back to the car when it was over.
She moved into the high rise apartments just north of 30th shortly after the fair that year and she discovered the next year that she could open her window on the 6th floor and could hear every show that was on stage at the fair. She decided she preferred to hear it from her chair.
My husband and I have a Sebring convertible and when we had our Cockers, Lady and then Lacy, they loved it when the fair was in town. We would put the top down on the convertible and drag Main a couple of times with them sitting on my lap.
They would have their nose in the air sniffing as we drove down Main Street by the fair grounds. Sometimes they would even drool if something really smelled good to them. I’m sure they could smell the hamburgers and the big hot dogs and would have loved to have one.
I loved to enter the Governors Cookie jar contest, and probably entered 6 times over the years. That was a real job to decide on a jar decoration that went along with the fair theme and get someone to build the surround for the gallon jar. Then I’d bake 13 kinds of cookies the day before the jar had to be turned in for judging. Then arrange them in the jar so every kind of cookie could be seen.
They only required you to have 8-9 different kinds of fancy cookies in the jar, but 13 has always been my lucky number so that is how many different recipes of cookies I baked and decorated when I entered.
Going to the fair with a friend was always the best part for me. When I went to the Fair with Liz we didn’t miss a single thing. She even had to see all the rabbits and the chickens and anything else in that building. Thankfully she didn’t care if we went into the building to see the cows and sheep.
But now at 72 with bad knees, and arthritis in my lower back the fun days of walking all over the fair are just a fond memory. I am not quite ready to be one of the people on the scooters, but they are great for those that can’t see the fair without them.
It is sad that there is no state fair this year, a lot of us will miss it. We will just have to remember the fun times from past fairs and hope it is back next year. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
