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$8 million in upgrades planned at Missouri State Fairgrounds; 2019 fair opens Thursday (AUDIO)

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The 2019 State Fair opens Thursday morning in west-central Missouri’s Sedalia. It’s Missouri’s largest agricultural expo.

The Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia (2018 file photo courtesy of Missouri State Fair)

State Fair Director Mark Wolfe says the fair commission is waiving late fees for entries this year, because farmers have endured hardships from flooding and tornadoes.

“We decided to waive our late fees, and so we did it across-the-board for everything not just our livestock but for entries for everything that we did. As a whole, we decided let’s just waive that,” Wolfe says.

The opening ceremony is Thursday morning at 11, and Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe is expected to keynote. Wolfe says about 350,000 people attended last year’s fair.

Thousands of Missourians are expected to make the trip to Sedalia for Thursday’s opening day.

Another big day will be August 15, which is the Governor’s ham breakfast. That begins at 8 a.m. The event normally draws more than 1,000 people to one large tent.

“It’s a popular event for sure,” says Wolfe. “A chance for folks if they want to have a chance to meet the governor face-to-face and meet their legislators face-to-face, that’s a great opportunity over there.”

U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt and representatives from U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley are expected to attend the breakfast, along with other members of Missouri’s congressional delegation. The breakfast also attracts state lawmakers in both parties along with candidates and judges.

Meantime, more than $8 million in new upgrades and repairs to the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia have been approved by state lawmakers. Director Wolfe is thanking legislators for approving Governor Mike Parson’s recommendation, saying the improvements are needed.

“It’s a complete electrical upgrade to the swine barn, complete renovation to the old sheep pavilion out here,” Wolfe says. “Gosh, we got some more campground upgrades. A new campground, 150-site campground will be developed just for exhibitors only.”

Wolfe tells Missourinet he’s hopeful all of those improvements will be done by the 2020 State Fair.

Some rural lawmakers, including State Sen. Doug Libla, R-Poplar Bluff, have called for additional funding for the fair in previous years. Senator Libla has said that investing more money in facilities will pay dividends in the future.

2019 facility improvements and upgrades include a new ticket booth at the Centennial entrance and the remodeling of the Charolais barn.

This year’s fair ends on August 18.

Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s full interview with Missouri State Fair Director Mark Wolfe, which was recorded on July 26, 2019:

Copyright © 2019 · Missourinet

State Fair underway amid concern for flood victims

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The flooding in southern Missouri is on the minds of those presenting the Missouri State Fair.

Fair Director Mark Wolfe says there will be some people who would like to be at the Fair whose plans will be altered by high water.

“I understand there are some roads down in central, south-central Missouri and down into the eastern part of the state … we’ll be thinking about those folks. Hopefully they’ll find a way out of there and make it to the Fair. Hopefully when the Fair’s over that water will have receded and life can get back to normal.”

Missouri Director of Agriculture Doctor Jon Hagler says some of the areas that are flooded now also received steady precipitation in the spring.

“Crops were looking good, pastures were looking good and green which is a rarity for July and August … for the cattle folks, a lot of those guys were just trying to get back up on their feet and they’ve had a lot of cattle stranded on one side of the farm, a lot of fences taken out, a lot of gates taken out and crossings, etcetera.”

Hagler notes that the lack of a permanent Federal Farm Bill means disasters such as this flood raise concerns about whether farmers will have any kind of disaster assistance, particularly livestock farmers.

State Fair Director encourages Missourians to attend 2013 run

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The State Fair marks the end of summer for many youth in Missouri.

Missouri State Fair Director Mark Wolfe visits the Brownfield Ag/Missourinet Studios in Jefferson City.

Missouri State Fair Director Mark Wolfe visits the Brownfield Ag/Missourinet Studios in Jefferson City.

This year’s Fair begins next week with an 11-day run, showcasing Missouri agriculture, particularly for FFA and 4-H students from all over the state. Fair Director Mark Wolfe says that follows a lot of hard work for those youth.

“A lot of our youth go out and exhibit at their county fairs and kinda use that as a barometer to see … are they ready to go to the State Fair? Are they going to make that investment in that entry to go to the State Fair and try to win at that level, but you know we have county fairs that occur after the State Fair is over, too.”

This year’s theme is “Chicks Dig It,” meant to celebrate women in agriculture while taking its cue from the combination of a popular country song and a winner from a prize-winning photograph in a Department of Agriculture contest.

“A little boy and baby chickens crawling all over him, and he’s just dying laughing, so it was kind of a fun thing and that’s where that came from. Out of that came an opportunity to single our ag women out and take a day at the Fair, so this year on Thursday August 15 we’re going to let women of all ages in the Fair that day for free and we’ve got things going on all over the Fairgrounds that day to kinda honor them and give them a chance to have a day that’s really geared towards them.”

Wolfe encourages Missourians to attend the Fair because that’s what keeps it going.

“We’re really, truly, pretty much a not-for-profit organization out there and we keep the Fair going by people’s participation in the Fair. We have a lot of great volunteers and a lot of people give up a lot of time to come out and put that on and we do it for one reason, and that’s to support agriculture in this state and support our youth.”

Find out more about this year’s Fair at its website.

Tom Steever with Brownfield Ag News Contributed to this story.

Emergency text warnings available for State Fair goers

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A severe storm last year blew down tents and other temporary structures at the Missouri State Fair, but no one was injured. That was only days after a storm at the Indiana State Fair blew down a concert stage, killing seven people and injuring 43.

Smartphone users can sign up for text warnings during the State Fair by scanning this QR code. The passcode is MOFAIR12.

With those events fresh in memory, Missouri State Fair organizers are offering a text message-based warning system to guests at this year’s Fair. Director Mark Wolfe says last year’s storm in Sedalia exposed an issue.

“One of the things that we noticed during that storm last year was it was very difficult to get a hold of not only just people on the grounds but those people maybe that evening that had already left … vendors and things … as we moved into the evening hours.”

The service, called Nixle, is being offered in conjunction with the Highway Patrol.

“When you come through the gate there will be signs right there at the gates that shows you with your phone how you can sign up for this Nixle system. What will happen is any time any kind of alert goes out it is monitored from right there on the fairgrounds from the Highway Patrol office. We can send out any kind of weather alert and it’s one send. You hit it one time and everybody that’s signed up gets it immediately in the form of a text message.”

To sign up, send a text to 888777 with the message MOFAIR12

Highway Patrol Lieutenant John Hotz says Fair goers can sign up based on their involvement at the Fair. “People, for example, who are in the campgrounds will sign up for one type of message, people who maybe are showing livestock will sign up in a different group and vendors would sign up in even another group. Basically what we want to try to do is send the information to the people that need it.”

Hotz says some messages will go to more than one group, as an emergency might warrant. It will tell recipients when an emergency arises, and more. “They’re also going to get instructions on if they do need to evacuate and what building they need to go to on the Fairgrounds.”

Hotz says the sign up information collected won’t be used for anything except to send alerts regarding emergencies at the State Fair.

The Fair begins Thursday in Sedalia.

House Budget Committee approves money toward State Fair storm shelters

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With damage done by severe storms at two state fairs last year fresh in memory, the Missouri State Fair staff wants to build some safe places for its guests to take cover.

The Missouri State Fair (picture courtesy, the Missouri State Fair)

The House Budget Committee has approved a capital improvement package that includes over $86,000 from the Agriculture Protection Fund, toward building four storm shelters on the State Fairgrounds. The 1,500 square foot safe houses would hold up to about 200 people each and be rated to withstand winds up to 250 miles-per-hour.

State Fair Director Mark Wolfe says several events last year illustrated the need for these shelters. “Unfortunately it takes sometimes tragedies like what something that happened in Indiana at the state fair grounds to make people wake up and go, ‘What are we doing on our end?'”

Last year, strong winds caused the collapse of a concert stage at the Indiana State Fair. Seven people were killed and 43 were injured. Another storm during the Missouri State Fair blew down some tents and other temporary structures, but no injuries were reported.

Wolfe says in that incident, the Fair staff had plenty of advanced warning and evacuated campers into the Mathewson Exhibition Center, the National Guard facility and the assembly hall that are on the grounds. “The problem there would be that if we didn’t have that much notice, would we have had time to get those people out of that campground and across and over on to the main body (of the grounds) to do that.”

The plan is to build these four shelters in the campground area, but Wolfe stresses, they will not take the place of the current shower houses.

$86,000 would be the state’s match toward an application for a federal grant. The total project is expected to cost $345,000.

The appropriation bill passed by the House Budget Committee must be approved by another committee before it can be debated by the full chamber.