A Fair Conundrum
ZANESVILLE, Ohio – County fairs were established to promote the year-round agricultural efforts made by area farmers.
The Muskingum County Fair Board met today to address last minute concerns around recent changes aimed to shorten the process of livestock sales but were limited to only being implemented during the swine show. The decision was made to lessen the time that buyers were spending in the sale barn at the expense of honoring a tradition that requires all exhibitors the opportunity to participate.
“The decision that the sale committee made was based upon trying to speed things up a little bit,” Muskingum County Fair Board Member Mike Boysel said. “So they thought they would speed things up a little bit by only walking the champion, the reserve champion and the outstanding exhibitor through the ring. I think they were just trying something new. Trying to see how it worked because there are many fairs around that have already gone to that option.”
The meeting, which was attended by nearly 100 attendees opposed to the changes, saw the fair board pass a motion to give the swine class participants the option of walking their hog through the ring versus only having it displayed electronically.
“The board was trying to get it to where they were trying to just televise a picture of the child and their hog and then the child only comes in the ring, no hog with them,” 4-H Parent Brooklyn Riehl said. “Buyers, we heard from a lot of them today. They are not wanting to buy something that they don’t know. I’m not going to go buy a car I’ve seen on Facebook without looking at it. You know, this is the same thing with an animal. You’re not going to go buy meat that you don’t know what it is. You could have a 10 pound hog and think that it’s a hundred pounds, just by the picture of it. You know. So you don’t know what you’re buying.”
Sale committee members are by and large anonymous and none were present at the meeting. The 180th edition of the Muskingum County Blue Ribbon Fair will take place between Sunday, August 16th and Saturday, the 22nd. For more information about the Swine sale, you can contact the Muskingum County Fair on Facebook.
