Published: Sunday, July 29, 2007
Columbiana County Fair modernizing
Arts and crafts entries have tripled this year at the
Columbiana County Fair.
LISBON — While you're reading this, Gerri Moore will be judging entries at the Columbiana County Fairgrounds.
The process will continue into Monday, when Moore will open the doors so visitors can see — and smell — the winning entries. The last entries to arrive are the fresh-baked goodies.
Moore is the new chairman of the arts and crafts committee, and entries are way up this year.
"There were 380 entries last year, and there are over 1,000 this year," Moore said. She's not sure why.
But she brings a professional passion to the unpaid fair board position.
She ran the Hookstown Fair in Hookstown, Pa., for a decade and is a certified fair executive who has run shows with 12,000 entries.
She's being helped in the judging by Melanie Cox of East Liverpool and Jennifer Boling of Wellsville, Moore's daughter. They've undergone training at the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs to be judges.
That, Moore said, allows them to judge at fairs anywhere in Ohio or the rest of the United States.
Encouraging participation
It's all part of the modernization of the fair this year that includes online ticket sales and entry registration. Tickets and even camp site registrations at the fair's campgrounds are up.
Moore has encouraged people to bring their entries down to the fair. There are categories for all ages.
There's big interest this year in making M&M cookies, as well as photography. Because of digital cameras and computers, even people in small apartments have room to take part in the arts, she explained.
That participation and discussion goes back into the community, she said.
For example, there are separate categories for patchwork quilts sewn by hand or with a machine. Moore said some entries can involve 400 hours of labor.
Moore made a Christmas-themed quilt. One small patch alone featuring St. Nick involved about three to four hours of work.
Cox said that the work can be so detailed and exacting that people may put it aside for a time, and then start again.
A learning experience
One man had called about entering a wooden replica of a tow truck. Moore said the man was concerned about the quality of his work. She encouraged him to bring it down anyway so he could learn more about woodworking and learn how to compete.
Then, there is the generational impact.
Boling, who is Moore's daughter, is not interested in the detailed sewing. But her daughter, Emma, 5, is.
Moore said of her granddaughter, "I'd like to see her carry on what I'm doing."
Cox said of the completed detailed sewing projects, "They're priceless. It's a lost art."
Moore also arranged for demonstrations. There will be sewing demonstrations from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Friday. There will be a gardening exhibition from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday. On Wednesday, the Columbiana County Homemakers Club will have demonstrations beginning at 1 p.m. and continuing all afternoon.
Moore said, "Fairs get in your blood, like anything else."
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