FARMINGTON – It was a sunny, slow Tuesday morning at the fair as Senior Day kicked off. People began filling the exhibition hall and the animal barns, waiting for the food and game stalls to open their windows.
The first Farmington Fair was in 1840-a two-day event which people could buy a lifetime pass to for $10. Though the fair has changed in a lot of ways, the roots in agriculture, animals and good food still hold strong.
“I’ve always come,” Rowena Swain says, “It’s the fair!”
“Yeah, and she’s pretty old now,” Swain’s friend, Paula Smith, jokes. The ladies simultaneously give quick hugs between elbow jabs.
“My mother used to work upstairs in the exhibition hall, so we came every day,” Swain recalls. “I love being here and seeing all the people.”
After growing up in the halls of giant pumpkins, intricate quilts and jars of pickles, Swain went on to exhibit her own baked goods, winning blue ribbons for her molasses and cherry wink cookies.
For Ione Reid it’s the animals that she looks forward to.
“I’ve been coming ever since I can remember,” Reid says. “I grew up on a small farm-we had a little bit of everything. I got a cow for my sixth birthday, so you could say this was my lifestyle.”
Reid use to exhibit her horses at the fair and was also active with 4-H. Nowadays, she and her husband, Jerry Reid, have no plans of going on rides, “Those days are over,” Ione Reid says. “That’s for the kids to do.”
Larry Paul and Wayne Currier have been coming to the fair for over 50 years. “But it feels like 100,” Currier jokes. “You don’t want to hear our stories,” Currier states. “They aren’t fit for the paper.”
Currier helps Paul out with his pulling steer. “They’re not cows. If you put in the paper that they’re cows, he’ll never hear the end of it from the boys,” Currier teases.
Paul has been training steer to pull for eight years now. “We do the distance pull,” Paul says. “And I like having fun with the boys. The women come once in a while,” Paul added.
Although no lifetime passes were in use, men and women who have been coming their whole lives enjoyed the Farmington Fair Tuesday. “Not much has changed, really,” Ione Reid said. “The bathrooms are much better, though.”
