Utah County Fair focuses on farms, families

SPANISH FORK — The once-moribund Utah County Fair opens Wednesday with plans to provide a rural experience for the county's increasingly urban population.

"The fair is back," said Utah County Commissioner Gary Anderson. "And it's getting better every year."

Anderson credits Pleasant Grove residents Jay and Carol Harmer with reinvigorating the annual event.

The Harmers took over as organizers of the Utah County Fair in 2008 with a mandate to restore the fair to its traditional location, the fairgrounds at Spanish Fork. Harmer said the four-day fair will feature events that revolve around home arts and farm animals.

"Here in Spanish Fork we can have horses; we can have a goat show," Carol Harmer said.

And in a county that has seen much of its farmland converted to subdivisions, that's important.

"And we have the opportunity to give adults and kids an attaboy — a chance to take home a blue ribbon," she said.

The fair floundered for several years after the county and Spanish Fork, which owns the fairgrounds, parted ways in the 1980s.

For a few years, the fair was held at what's now Utah Valley University, but the venue proved disappointing. After a few fair-less years, the Utah County Fair was resurrected at Thanksgiving Point nine years ago, with the county ponying up the funds — $160,000 in 2007 — and Thanksgiving Point providing the planning. Reviews were mixed.

In 2008, Spanish Fork approached the county with refurbished fairgrounds, and the Harmers were asked to head up the event.

"I'd never run a fair before, but I had done the Pleasant Grove Heritage Festival," said Carol Harmer, who had served on the Pleasant Grove City Council.

The Harmers offered a different kind of fair, with no entrance fees and no parking fees — and at half the cost. The County Commission has budgeted $75,000 for this year's event.

"We have a better fair for less money," Anderson said.

There are costs for the food, the carnival rides and the evening events, which include Saturday night's main attraction and chief money-maker — a demolition derby.

It has worked. The first year, an estimated 25,000 attended. Last year, that number grew to 35,000. This year, the Harmers are hoping for more.