County Interstate fair good, wholesome fun for everyone
There’s something about this time of year that carries a Rodgers and Hammerstein feel.
It’s the fair.
The Spokane County Interstate Fair always opens its 10-day run the Friday after Labor Day, complete with live entertainment, a potpourri of food, the fruits of the area’s artists and farmers, and a rodeo.
It’s a tradition that goes back to 1886, when the Washington and Idaho Fair Association held its first fair in the Inland Empire at Corbin Park. The name “Spokane Interstate Fair” was first used in 1901. The fair moved to its current location in 1952.
In that span of 119 years, the people of the Inland Northwest have shown off their talents with arts and crafts, and food preservation and photography, among a wide range of other endeavors. They’ve displayed prized livestock as well as horticulture and floriculture. There have been enough blue ribbons given out to wallpaper each building on the fairgrounds and enough adrenalin produced by carnival rides to give the entire country a major rush.
And it just keeps going.
It’s that feeling that Rodgers and Hammerstein captured in their musical “State Fair,” which was introduced in a 1933 movie musical starring Janet Gaynor and Will Rogers and spawned two remakes: in 1945, starring Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Vivian Blaine and Dick Haymes, and 1962, starring three of the day’s brightest young singing stars: Pat Boone, Bobby Darin and Ann-Margret.
Interestingly, the 1962 film produced something far more substantial than the Oscar-winning song “It Might As Well Be Spring.” Years later director Jose Ferrer’s son, Gabriel Ferrer, married Pat Boone’s daughter, Debbie – forever linking the singing Boone family with Debbie’s mother-in-law, Rosemary Clooney.
The first two movie versions center on the Iowa State Fair – the 1962 remake shifts to Texas – and celebrate the joy of rural America. They embrace the joy of making perfect strawberry preserve and turning canned green beans into a work of art. They celebrate a lifestyle that appreciates a hand-made quilt and takes pride in well-cared-for livestock.
A fair is unabashedly wholesome. Dismiss it as a cliché if you want, but these annual fetes stand as a reminder that wholesome still has a place in modern-day society. They stand as a reminder of what can happen when you take pride in what you do and what you create and in who you are as a person and as a community.
That feeling is captured in that great Rodgers and Hammerstein score – especially the title song that includes the lyric “Our state fair is a great state fair – don’t miss it, don’t even be late.”
You don’t have to be Pat Boone or Ann-Margret to enjoy the fair and share that feeling. You just have to take pride in where you live.
The Spokane Interstate Fair is unique for a reason: The Inland Northwest is unique.
This year’s fair opens with the three-day run of the annual Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeo, with each night’s performance beginning at 6:45.
Country music’s Dierks Bentley headlines from the grandstand stage Sept. 13 and the fair closes with a bang – a Demolition Derby scheduled for Sept. 18 at 4 p.m.