By Sydney Leyerle | Sentinel-Tribune
By Sydney Leyerle
Special to the Sentinel-Tribune
The first evening of the 2023 Wood County Fair kicked off with a 150th anniversary celebration reception.
Open to everyone, this reception offered a place for community members, past and present fair royalty and anyone else involved in the fair to gather, reminisce and learn some fair history.
Former fair royalty was invited back to the fair this year and many came to the reception. Jessica Nagel, a fair board director, said some of the returning royalty came from across the country to be here.
“We have people who were flying in from Arizona to come join us tonight and just hang out and talk and just be a family,” she said.
Betty Michaelis Anderson, who was Miss. Wood County in 1961, was at the reception. She returns to the fair each year, and throughout the years has seen many changes. When she was fair royalty, she said there was no Fair Queen but instead there was a Miss. and Mrs. Wood County.
However, she said as Miss. Wood County she still had to do many of the same things the current Fair Queens have to do. She said she had to travel to other county fairs and would often have people come up to her and talk with her.
Along with the changes in royalty titles, Anderson said she has also seen changes with 4-H projects and clubs. During her involvement with the fair, she said she had to join two different clubs as they were split into boys and girls. At the time, the girls’ club was only allowed to participate in sewing and cooking. Anderson said she wanted to be involved with animals, so she joined the boys’ club as well as the girls’ club.
Despite being a girl in the boys’ club, Anderson said she didn’t mind it as she had a lot of experience working on a farm.
“I was just as mean and tough as they were, you know, working on the farm, hoeing beans and all of that type of thing,” she said.
The return of fair royalty allows for the community to learn more about the fair’s history and provides an opportunity for people to reminisce about past experiences.
Deanne Corken, a fair board director, said she believes the returning royalty will show the community how important the fair is and how the memories made at the fair will remain forever.
“Some of these people have been excited to return,” she said. “It made a good excuse for them to come back. They like to be here.”
Throughout the past 150 years, the fair has changed in many ways. However, Corken said many traditions have continued to be passed on each year and it has become something many families look forward to.
“We call this the 150th fair family reunion because that’s people, whether it’s your 4-H family, your fair family, or regular family, this is a place they all get together and make memories,” she said.
