Fair board gives update

In 2013, the Wright County Fair board invested in a new show arena and animal barn building to be paid for through capital campaign pledges. At Tuesday’s supervisors meeting, Tricia Rosendahl, fair board president, was able to report that out of the $750,000 project, only $16,944 of the mortgage remained to be paid—which means less than 3 percent remains after only three years. “The capital campaign did wonderful for us, and the pledges have continued to come in on a regular basis,” she said. She believes the project will be completely paid off in the next year.

The Wright County Fair has also had success with its sponsorship program, Rosendahl said, bringing in more than $585,000 over the last 13 years, about $64,000 for the 2016 fair alone. But though the fair has seen much financial success, the 2016 fair was only a week from disaster.

In March, the county held a large scale tornado emergency response drill at the fairgrounds. “We had no clue that we would almost be enacting that real thing when the storm hit Eagle Grove the week after the fair,” Rosendahl said. The July storm that brought down hundreds of trees in Eagle Grove and did an estimated $45,000 worth of damage to the fairgrounds. The free stage was destroyed, the Catholic food stand was damaged, and a flag pole and many trees were downed.

Rosendahl said they had received insurance payments for the damage. “We should be ready by next year’s fair,” she said. “We have a committee that’s working on the free stage to make it bigger and better.”

For more fair news and county business, see the December 30 edition of the Monitor.