The Warren County Fair provided area residents with plenty of opportunities for summer fun last week, even when the weather did not cooperate. 

Warren County residents flocked to the fairgrounds for events like the carnival, tractor pull, rodeo, demolition derby and greased pig wrestling. Unfortunately some of the earlier events in the week had to be canceled due to the powerful rains that swept through the area around the Fourth of July holiday. 

Even with the rain, Warren County Fair Board Chairman Paul Owenby felt the event was a success. 

“If we just kept Mother Nature away for the first couple days it would have been a lot better, but you just have to deal with the cards that are dealt to you,” Owenby said. “We lost a couple of events on Wednesday and Thursday, but they’re not the end of the world, and we more than made up for it on Friday and Saturday.”

The events over the weekend included two full nights of the rodeo as well as the tractor pull, demolition derby, greased pig scramble and the fireworks show to conclude this year’s fair. 

While the events later in the week went off without a hitch, it was not without work from the fair board and their volunteers. 

“We used a lot of equipment and pushed off a lot of mud in a parking lot to try to make usable parking spots for people to make it easier for them to get in and out,” Owenby said. “As hard as it did rain both days, a lot of the water runoff skimmed dirt off of spots and we kind of regained part of our parking lot back by Saturday.”

By Saturday afternoon, that parking lot was nearly completely filled with cars lining Fairgrounds Road. 

“That was our biggest hurdle, getting everything working through there and still getting the events in, but Friday and Saturday really came together,” Owenby said. 

He felt that while they did lose some revenue from the canceled events, it was par for the course for the fair and they were able to come back stronger on the later days in the week. 

“We’ve had better years, but we’ve also had a lot of worse years too, so it’s just part of the game,” Owenby said. 

The events of Saturday were especially popular as residents populated the fairgrounds for popular events like greased pig wrestling, which saw dozens of fairgoers brave the especially muddy pig pit to wrangle pigs, to the delight of packed bleachers of spectators. 

Empty seats were also hard to come by at the rodeo and demolition derby as drivers and cowboys competed for trophies and scores in the nineties in beat-up cars and on the backs of broncos. 

This year’s fair also had some changes as well as new amenities such as a new carnival contractor who was able to step in just weeks before the fair when their usual carnival had to cancel due to scheduling conflicts. 

Owenby said they were content with the carnival’s offering of rides although he would have preferred they brought more games to the fair as well. Regardless, he said the fair board was already in the process of negotiations to use Ozark Amusements as their carnival contractor for the coming years. 

Owenby was also pleased with the performance of the laser tag which was set up outdoors behind the games and felt it was a hit with the families who attended. 

He was especially thankful for all the volunteers that were able to help out with events at the fair and said they were excited to begin preparations for next year. 

“We depend on people, when they commit to us, they show up, and they helped us out tremendously this year,” Owenby said.