It may be the dead of winter, but members of the Senior Fair Board are readying for the summer and the
2019 Wood County Fair.
The board met Jan. 24 after the recent Ohio Fair Managers Convention held in Columbus.
The report of the officers meeting noted how they will be receiving bids for a new electrician contract
for the fair and its grounds.
The entertainment committee has signed for a different petting zoo for the fair, which will including
racing pigs along with both donkey and camel rides and a circus act. There will also be laser tag at
this year’s fair.
It was announced that the Shipshewana on the Road show which made its debut in December in the new
Pavilion building will return ion Nov. 23-24.
It was also announced C&E Gun Shows has booked four weekends to hold shows in the new pavilion.
Dates are March 2-3, June 1-2, Sept. 28-29 and Dec. 1-2.
C&E Gun Shows has been organizing gun shows for 33 years. They set up a total of 85 shows per
year in the states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Tennessee and Virginia along with Ohio
which boasts roughly about 40 of the shows. For more information and show schedules go to cegunshows.com

Mandy Lobdell attended her first meeting as the new Junior Fair coordinator.
This is a new position which was offered to her last year and she accepted the position and began her
duties the first week of January.
The part-time position was created after Jayne Roth, who has performed most of these duties through her
post with the OSU Extension office. Roth notified the board last year that she was going to return the
junior fair operations back over to the senior fair board.
Lobdell is a resident of Findlay and will be featured in a future Sentinel-Tribune story.
There were various department reports including the sheep committee report which sought and was approved
to move their market lamb show day to Thursday afternoon of fair week to 5 p.m. which will be followed
by the showmanship class.
The board also approved a change from awarding championship trophies to using the now popular champion
banners.
The board also approved purchasing a new laptop along with hardware and software for Lobdell to use with
operation of the department.
Following an executive session for personnel matters, the board returned to open session and approved
raises for fair board employees “as discussed in executive session.” The board declined to provide any
details on the amount of the raises.
During the executive session while waiting on the board’s deliberations, in the hall outside the meeting
Jim Blackford, the head of maintenance for the fairgrounds said he was hoping the board would approve
raises for his workers as it had been some time since they had received raises and it was becoming
harder to keep good workers at the old rates.
A check into open records questions also revealed that the fair board is a mostly private entity and,
while it receives public dollars, is not required to reveal raises.