When the White County Fair is held next month, it will be allowing something it has not done in the nearly 140 years that it has been in existence, according to fair board President/Chairman Alan Quattlebaum: “swipe a card” for admission.
“We’re introducing credit cards this year, and that will help a lot of people – they don’t have to bring the cash, they can actually buy a ticket at the gate,” Quattlebaum said. “That is something we’re stepping off into for the first time.”
The fair, which was first held in 1883 and returns Sept. 12-17, also will have a band playing each night, not just on specific nights, he said.
“We have had a lot of growth at the White County Fair,” Quattlebaum said. “No. 1, we started out with the rodeo arena. We have completely redone our announcer stand. We have redone all of these bucking chutes and all of the catch pens in the back. We actually went in there [the arena] and added additional seating on the south side. We painted all of our bleachers and fixed all of that up.”
In the livestock building, where “we got a generous donation from one of our participants in our fair,” Quattlebaum said, “we got completely revamped in our livestock barn this year. It will be all new inside of it for all their tie-downs and cattle and stuff. We got that done.”
Quattlebaum said another “generous donation we got this year” was for “a pavilion that was the oldest structure we had on our property” where there was “some wind damage.”
“What we’ve done is we tore it down and we got a new concrete slab, and also we had a generous donor who came in and donated the building,” he said. “We’re having a new building put up. It will be a pavilion just like the other one but it will be a metal structure. It will be a place where they’ve got picnic tables underneath [where] everybody can sit down and take it easy.”
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