Fair

The Columbia Association is ready to draw people to Town Center this weekend with some new enticements: roller coasters, singing dinosaurs and 3,000 free cupcakes, all part of the revived Columbia City Fair. The City Fair also will have music, food, artists, vendors, information booths and family entertainment tonight through Sunday as part of the community's 40th birthday celebration. The fair is the latest in a series of summer events at the lakefront, which has already hosted Australian artists on stilts, two fireworks displays and Harry Potter (on a movie screen)

I am feeling stupid right now, a condition not totally unfamiliar to me, but unsettling nonetheless. "See how easy it is?" says the man running the Bank-a-Ball booth. He flips a wiffleball against a backboard decorated with a Spider-Man decal. The ball lands lightly in the basket below. If I do the same thing, I'll win a stuffed animal. The pressure is tremendous. I plunk down three bucks for three balls. I toss each ball softly, with no spin, trying to deaden it against Spiderman's face.

After the last ribbons are handed out at the Carroll County 4-H/FFA Fair, some serious money starts changing hands when county bigwigs open their checkbooks to bid two to four times the market value on steers, lambs, hogs and other animals that fetch about $179,000 a year.Some of the money raised in the livestock auctions that are the culmination of the fair is donated to the fair or scholarship funds, but most 4-H members keep at least enough to cover feed costs, which can easily reach $1,000, and to build their savings for college.

AT 6 ON FRIDAY evening, our neighborhood erupted into celebration. Adults clapped and cheered. Children screamed and ran around in circles. The power was back on! Television! Computers! Lights! Garage-door openers! Vacuum cleaners! Well, you get the point.The power had gone out at 1: 45 p.m. Thursday, leaving us without electricity for more than 24 hours. At first, it was a great adventure. Candles and battery-powered appliances filled in for the missing electricity.But teen-age boys have a limited sense of adventure.

For Diane Brown and her daughter, Alison, the challenge on the opening day of the 54th Howard County Fair yesterday was to get their vegetables and preserves from the car to exhibit halls without damaging them."

For one week a year, anyone in Carroll County can eat like a farmer.But it wasn't always so. Just five years ago, the kitchen at the Carroll County 4-H Fair was serving up limp cold cuts and rubbery burgers.Then Nona Schwartzbeck took charge. She and an obedient cadre of volunteers turn out hand-made chicken pies, spaghetti with meat sauce and barbecued pork and chicken.The meals are built around a bounty of meat and vegetables donated by farmers, drawing between 400 and 900 people a day during the weeklong fair, which runs through Saturday morning at the Carroll County Agricultural Center in Westminster.

After the last ribbons are handed out at the Carroll County 4-H/FFA Fair, some serious money starts changing hands when county bigwigs open their checkbooks to bid two to four times the market value on steers, lambs, hogs and other animals that fetch about $179,000 a year.Some of the money raised in the livestock auctions that are the culmination of the fair is donated to the fair or scholarship funds, but most 4-H members keep at least enough to cover feed costs, which can easily reach $1,000, and to build their savings for college.

Hurricane Floyd shut down the Anne Arundel County Fair in Crownsville today for the first time in its 47-year history.The storm's high winds, the governor's declaration of a state of emergency and the announcement that county schools would be closed today helped in the decision, said fair manager John Kozenski Jr.Kozenski also recalled that keeping the fair open at Sandy Point State Park during a storm several years ago proved to be a disaster because tents...

A scholarship fund to memorialize Eddie Harrison Jr., a young Woodbine farmer and 4-H member who died in an auto accident in July, has drawn an unprecedented show of support from young people and bidders, who raised $32,322 through the auction of animals last month at the Carroll County 4-H/FFA Fair."

David L. Greene, the man relied on by most of the county's 1,041 farms as a reliable source of information and advice, will retire June 30 as director of the Carroll County office of Maryland Cooperative Extension."

On September 8, 2009 JOYSHENE E. Devoted wife of Willie Fair Friends may visit the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 WABASH AVENUE on Monday after 8:30 A.M. where the family will receive friends from 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. The family will also receive friends on Tuesday at the Calvary Baptist Church, 3911 Garrison Boulevard at 11:00 A.M. followed by funeral service at 11:30 A.M.

As they have for 64 years, northern Baltimore County families are preparing for the annual Hereford Junior Farm Fair on Saturday, certain the event has a future but uncertain where that might be. Their longtime location at Hereford High School is about to become a parking lot for the expanding school. "Our barns will be torn down," said Kelly Wilson, the fair coordinator whose daughters are the third generation of the family to show at the event. "This is our last fair at the school, but none of us are saying this is our last fair."

Who cares about six years from now? Orioles fans should be watching catcher Matt Wieters when the New York Yankees come to town April 6. There's no question he's already one of the club's best everyday players, and there's no question the O's are a better team with him. The only question is whether the Orioles and their fans are better served by taking him off the major league roster to keep the clock from ticking on his eligibility for arbitration and...

Maryland doesn't really have "bigs." But whoever those inside guys are, they're doing a pretty fair job of making sure the other team doesn't use its size advantage to dominate the boards. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ terpsblog)

I really thought a resounding win against the Eagles would be enough to convince people the Ravens are for real, but I've gotten plenty of e-mails and blog comments dismissing the victory because of the problems the Eagles have had the past two weeks. Fair enough, I guess, but it's also fair to point out that the "last-place" Eagles would be just a half game out of first place in a couple of other divisions and would be in first place in those two divisions with the record they would have had if they had won yesterday.

Meeting to focus on Edgewood businesses The Edgewood Alliance will hold a breakfast meeting to help the Edgewood business community to be more successful through involvement in various aspects of the community. The next breakfast will be at 7:30 a.m. Friday at the Edgewood American Legion, 415 Edgewood Road. Doors will open at 7:15 a.m. for a breakfast buffet. The cost is $10, payable at the door. The program will feature Edgewood Elementary School Principal Lisa Sundquist discussing "Education and Business: Connecting to Build a Strong Community."

The Parkville-Carney Business and Professional Association will hold its 23rd annual Parkville Towne Centre Fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today on Harford Road between Taylor and Dubois avenues. The fair will feature activities for children and entertainment including the Leslie Avenue Band. Information: 410-668-5251, 410-665-0100 or www.parkvillecarney.com.

The newest contest at the Howard County Fair required more than 50 entrants to toss basketballs, hoist tires, carry pails of water and avoid obstacles with the help - or hindrance - of four wheels, two hydraulic arms and a 74-inch bucket. In front of several hundred spectators Monday night, the fair's inaugural skid loader competition drew an all-male field consisting mostly of workers from local landscaping and excavating companies with a few farmers and other machinery fans in the mix. "We figured it would just be fun," said Jeremy Heath, owner of Heath Contractors in Cooksville, who entered along with some of his employees.

The Mahoney family moved from Bel Air to Denver 12 years ago, but they return every summer, timing their trip to coincide with the Harford County Farm Fair. "We still have to come back to go to the fair," Fran Mahoney said. They made a day of it Thursday, accompanied by the Kotula family of Fallston, their hosts. Before hopping on a shuttle bus, Mahoney and Teresa Kotula, longtime friends and Bel Air High alumnae, gathered their kids in the parking lot for their annual fair photo. Kotula handed a bystander a camera and joined the group pose.

ONLINE For more photos from the Harford County fair, go to baltimoresun.com/fair