These Northeast Ohio Fairs Are Scaling Back

In most Ohio counties the sweet smell of fried foods and happy squeals of prized pigs will be missed this month, but the Medina County Fair (Aug. 3-9), Holmes County Fair (Aug. 10-15) and Lorain County Fair (Aug. 23-30) are continuing on with their summer staples as trimmed down junior fairs. Expect to see some differences such as limited capacity or closed grandstands, no rides or food vendors and open livestock events to ensure proper social distancing. “We’re trying to create as much of the regular fair as we can,” says Pamela Oberholtzer, publicity committee chair for the Medina County Fair, which will offer Facebook Live streams of its junior fair activities. However your local county fair takes shape, it’s about trying to maintain some semblance of the long-held tradition of agriculture and competitions. “We’re one of the longest running fairs in the state of Ohio,” says Kim Meyers, president of the Lorain County Fair board. “We’ve been doing it for 175 years. It’s just a great tradition that we have, and it’s an honor to be part of it.”