TALLMADGE: Dozens of Summit County Fair visitors strolled through the animal barn Wednesday morning, admiring the cows, pigs and goats.
Neither man nor beast appeared to be sweating.
“We wouldn’t have come last week. We would have been at the pool,” Wadsworth baby sitter Maria Rocha said of her two young charges, recalling last week’s miserably hot and humid weather.
As luck would have it, the first two days of the fair enjoyed blue skies and temperatures in the low 80s.
Scattered storms are in the immediate forecast, but Richard Storey, vice president of the Summit County Agricultural Society, said he doesn’t even pay attention.
“You go with what you get,” Storey said. “Weather’s not something we can control, so we don’t worry about it.”
The fair has operated at its current location off East Howe Road for 54 years, but has been an annual tradition since 1827. In recent years, the six-day affair averages 30,000 to 50,000 people (depending on the weather).
Tuesday night’s main attraction, the demolition derby, attracted more than 3,000 visitors to the packed grandstand. The second biggest draw each year is the tractor pulls, on tap tonight, Friday and Saturday.
The rest of the schedule is filled with the usual 4-H competitions, music and magic performances, rides and food and craft vendors.
Storey said popular features include free kids games at the Youth Park, with activities like a lemon-eating contest and mummy-wrapping competition, and Kids Day Circus, held several times throughout the week.
A rodeo Wednesday night, NEO Roller Derby expo games Saturday and motocross racing Sunday are also expected to be popular attractions, Storey said.
At 6 p.m. Saturday, the livestock auctions begin.
Emily Ahrens, 17, of Tallmadge, will have three pigs for sale.
She’s raised the 270-pound animals since April and was preparing them Wednesday for judging. Ribbons are given out for 4-H members who show off the best specimens of everything from chickens and rabbits to horses and steers.
Emily said she’s been entering hogs for five or six years now, and she knows better than to name them, knowing they are destined for the butcher.
“It’s easier. I don’t want to get attached,” she said.
Friends Toni Howe and Pat Hansel, both of Barberton, said they missed the fair the last couple of years.
They found themselves at the grounds Wednesday, “No. 1, because it’s cooler today; No. 2 because it’s senior day and we get in free; No. 3 because we just needed our fair fix,” Howe said.
To their surprise, they had stumbled upon a major fair feature that they had missed in previous trips: the Summit County Farm Bureau Historical Museum.
The museum has been opened to fairgoers since 1991 and features thousands of historical artifacts from Summit County’s agricultural past. In addition to farm equipment, visitors will find a horse-drawn taxi and school bus, pharmacy and kitchen displays, and a row of everything from hats to typewriters.
“It’s all kinds of things donated or on loan to us that show farm life in Summit County,” said Edward Luther, who was on hand to answer visitors’ questions.
The fair runs through Sunday. General admission is $6. Kids 14 or younger get in free today.
For a complete schedule, visit http://www.summitfair.com.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.