The midway lights have shut down, the animals have gone back to the farms and winners have pinned their ribbons to their bedroom walls as the 52nd annual Howard County Fair closed yesterday.
For the 10th year, the fair on Route 144 in West Friendship drew more than 125,000 patrons this year during its weeklong run. The sunny weather drew numerous patrons each day to the fair, organizers said, but yesterday's 100-degree temperature kept many from the fairgrounds.
"When the sun went down, people really started coming in here in droves," Dr. F. Grant Hill, the fair board's president, said yesterday. "Things didn't seem to be as packed at the food vendors during the heat of the day. It just got too hot even to come out and have fun."
But the drought throughout the state sent fair organizers desperately searching to find the famed sweet corn and ripe vegetables. Some organizers estimated that this summer drought caused a 20 percent decrease in the number of entries in the vegetable and produce contests.
Antiques buffs stepped back to the days of farming when mules pulled plows and farmers used threshing machines and wrought-iron bailers for hay at the Antique Farm Machinery Club booth at the fair's entrance.
Throughout the week, dozens of club members demonstrated how 500 to 1,000 pounds of oats ran through a 1900 threshing machine to make wheat.
"I came up in this era, so working it at the fair brings back a lot of memories," said Burgone Frank, as he helped run a 1938 thresher. "A lot of memories of hard work and tough times when we didn't have swimming pools to jump in after we were done working from sunup to sundown on the farm."
Many of the 1,000 4-H Club members who showed livestock, baked pies or cakes or sewed clothes lived the motto many of the longtime farmers and fair attendees recite: "You reap what you sow."
"This is the culmination of six months' worth of work. Months of spending six to eight hours in the barn a day," said Bob Rynarzewski, as he helped his daughter, Heather, 18, shear a lamb one night at midnight. "If you're going to do something like this, you do it right.
"That can mean the difference between first and second place."
His daughter won a championship award for her showmanship.
"There's no family secret, just get out there, work with your animals and work hard," said Heather Rynarzewski of Woodbine.
In the past few years, organizers said, the number of 4-H members has grown as more youngsters from Columbia and HTC Ellicott City have started leasing animals.
This year, 4-H members entered 113 steers, 290 swine and 275 lambs as well as exhibits in 47 other areas. Yet, for some 4-H Club members, the livestock sale couldn't replace the bonds they had made over the last few months with their animals.
"It's great to win. It makes it extra special that I saw him be born and watched him grow up," said Ryan Orndorff, 13, of Dayton, as he petted his 1,272-pound black steer, Junior.
"He's a puppy dog," Ryan said. He's my buddy." Junior won grand champion market beef steer.
The sparkling tiara on the head of this year's farm queen, Laura Johnson, 16, of Clarksville, drew the attention of dozens of buyers, who aggressively drove up the bids for her 100-pound lamb.
Citizen's National Bank was the winner at $10 a pound. And Laura said the money will help her pay back her parents the $200 she borrowed to buy the lamb and feed it.
Laura won the Jennifer Olson Memorial Award, which is named after a Glenelg High School student who died in a car accident in 1992. The award is given to an outstanding 4-H Club member.
"This week has been like a dream come true," Laura said. "I started crying when I got the Olson award because it was just great that people thought I was a 4-H'er who went the extra yard to help people."
Pub Date: 8/17/97
