Founding Fair Board Member Calls In Old Debt For Kids’ Sake

I’ve been reading with interest the plans to charge the Junior Livestock Show for using the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds. I hope Spokane County commissioners will take note about some history concerning the fairgrounds.

In 1947, a group of about 12 of us guys wanted to re-establish an interstate fair in Spokane. There had been one for many years but it went broke in 1929. It was held where Playfair Race Course is located now. We met monthly at the courthouse and each paid a dollar to build a treasury for stamps, stationery and other items to get the idea off the ground. We worked with Commissioner Bill Allen to put together parcels of land to create the 99-acre total now known as the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds. We were business and community leaders who thought it was important to have a fair. I had been a 4-H kid who showed pigs at the 1929 fair.

We had three years to establish a fair or the property would go back to its original owners. On the third year we put on what could be called a fair. We had no money to construct buildings so we rented a big circus-type tent. We put on a three-day fair with commercial and livestock exhibits all under The Big Top. We had our problems. The first day the wind blew like mad so fair board members had to hang on to the ropes so that the tent wouldn’t blow down. We received a letter from a Colfax man who said his wife’s shoes were ruined by the rocks at the fair site and he wanted money for new shoes, but would forget it if our fair improved the next year. It did.

I handled the publicity during which time we established the fair slogan: “It’s For You.” We also instituted the tallest sunflower contest and we even planted 10 acres of wheat on what is now the baseball parking lot. The wheat was used for our daily old-time threshing bee demonstrations.

We put in a lot of man-hours to develop the fair for which we got no pay whatsoever. Now as one of the original fair board members I would like to donate this UNPAID county fair development time to the Junior Livestock Show, 4-H and Future Farmers of America. I’m sure it amounts to more than they need for rent. This would settle an old debt.

This way the commissioners can comply with the state law that says no free rides and everybody would be happy, including me. I know the kids will appreciate it.

MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.