CHEBOYGAN – The Cheboygan County Fair opens at 8:30 am Saturday, August 6 with a host of new activities and a full week of fun for residents and visitors.
The first activity of the show will be an open leisure horse show at 8:30am, with a range of other activities also taking place on Saturday including the 4-H exhibits and open class show check-in from 10:00am
“We’re going to have a corn hole tournament and at 3 p.m. they’re going to have a polka band from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.,” said Keith Ginop, Cheboygan County Fairs Manager.
There will also be a community market and food truck on Saturdays outside the front gate of the fairgrounds at 204 E. Lincoln Ave. and check-ins for all registered beefs.
On Sunday 7th August the Classic Tractor Pull competition will take place in the Grandstand to officially kick off ‘fair week’ where tractors compete to see who can pull the heaviest loads. This event begins at 1:00 p.m. and admission is $5 per adult and children 3 years and younger are admitted free with paid adult admission.
At the same time, an open speed horse show will be held in the riding hall.
Monday 8 August is a day of family fun at the Exhibition Center from 11am to 2pm. This special event features a range of family-oriented activities including car seat inspections and giveaways, games and crafts.
“These events are organized by the Human Services Coordination Unit,” said Leigh Ann Theunick, project coordinator at Catholic Human Services. “All of these events are designed to help connect county residents — particularly seniors and families — with organizations that have resources to support them. Family Fun Day offers a variety of free activities for children aged 12 and under.”
Participants will receive a card that must be signed by the organizations participating in the event. When the cards are ready, they can be turned in to win a variety of prizes.
At the same time, Project Connect is also taking place in the 4-H building. This will be an event with a variety of resources for members of the community.
The Meet Up and Eat Up program, which provides free meals for the youth of the community, also begins Monday and lasts from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. This program takes place throughout the week of the fair from Monday to Friday.
There’s a new event in the stands on Monday, the Barnyard Round Up, starting at 7pm
“To my knowledge, many of the kids involved in 4-H and CCYLP (Cheboygan County Youth Livestock Program) will be doing this,” Ginop said. “They’re going to have a greased pig, they have to try to catch the pig and some other stuff out there. It’s going to be a fun, interesting event.”
Admission to this event is a canned donation, with all food donations going to the St. Thomas Food Pantry.
Tuesday is Agriculture and Natural Resources Day. There will be demonstrations of old-fashioned butter-making and ice-cream making, as well as presentations by conservation forester Brittany Vanderwall and conservationist Boyd Byelich.
The carnival – hosted by Skerbeck Carnival – also opens at 1pm for the week
The heavyweight horse pulls begin in the grandstands at 7:00 p.m., where horse teams from across the state compete for prizes and the right to declare which team can pull the most weight. Admission to this event is $5 per person and children 3 years and younger are admitted free with paid adult admission.
Wednesday is Veterans, Seniors and Disabled Day, for which admission to the fair is free until 3 p.m. Also from 12pm to 3pm is Women’s Day with special events just for women as well as basket weaving demonstrations and cake making competition judging.
The grandstand event for Wednesday is the super modified truck and tractor train, which starts at 7 p.m. and admission is $10 per person. Children under the age of three are admitted free when accompanied by a paying adult.
Thursday is Children’s Day at the fair with a range of fun activities for children including a cake eating competition, sack races, money races and more. This will be at 1pm
There will also be an open speed horse show in the horse arena on Thursday at 18:00, followed by a mud run and side-by-side obstacle course in the grandstands at 19:00. Admission for this event is $10, with children three years and older taking free admission with a paying adult.
On Friday from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. there will be a rodeo children’s camp in the grandstands, in which children can participate free of charge. That evening, at 7:00 p.m., the rodeo returns to the stands – organized by Western Ministries Rodeo – with admission $10 per person, with children 3 and under getting in free.
The fair ends on Saturday, August 13 at 12:00 p.m. with the young animal auction in the pigsty pavilion. The grandstand event is the bump and run derby race which starts at 5pm. Admission is $12 per person, with children 3 and under free.
Ginop said a number of improvements have been made to the fairgrounds this year and the fair board and volunteers look forward to showing them off. More upgrades will be made over the next few years to make the annual event bigger and better.
“And it looks like our sponsors have gone up this year and our vendors have gone up this year, so it looks like we’re going to have a lot of nice displays on our midway,” Ginop said. “A lot of us are looking forward to it.”
Admission to the fair is $3 per person and parking across the street from the fairgrounds is free.
Visit cheboyganfair.com for more information about the show.
Contact Reporter Kortny Hahn at khahn1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @khahnCDT.