It’s fair week for Wasatch County, and that means good food, fun times and community activities with the potential to make the once-rural and quickly-growing community feel small again, at least for a few precious days.
Though Wasatch County Parks and Recreation marketing coordinator Jen Bowman said there’s nothing drastically different between this year’s event and the 2023 fair, that doesn’t mean the festivities lack excitement, variety or enthusiasm.
From a free dinner Monday evening to a string of rodeos that end Saturday night, there’s plenty of opportunities for community members of all interests to get involved and spend some time at the fair or at its activities.
The true highlight, in her opinion, comes Friday morning at 9 during the Mountain Valley Roundup, a rodeo where community helpers come together to assist individuals with special needs as they compete.
“That one’s very special to us. We get law enforcement, we get our local high school rodeo team to come help volunteer with all these contestants to have a really, really fun time.” Bowman said. “That’s definitely the highlight, I would say.”
“He’s everywhere with those kids,” Bowman said, “making sure they have a really great time, they’re taken care of.”
Tuesday starts with beef livestock competitions at 10 a.m. An hour after those shows finish, kids will also show goats they’ve raised. Later there’s a free pool party at the Wasatch Aquatic Center between 1-3 p.m.
“That’s usually really fun,” Bowman said. “As you can imagine, it gets pretty busy. … Who doesn’t want to splash in a pool on a hot day?”
By 4 p.m. Wednesday, the carnival and country market will be set up and will run throughout the weekend. That evening, Wasatch County Council members serve a $5 barbecue dinner.
“The Dutch oven potatoes are to die for,” Bowman said. “They’re cooked by one of our employees. His name is John Burns, and he is just the epitome of all that is good. He’s just a wonderful, wonderful man, and he does all the Dutch oven potatoes, and it’s as if he’s cooking for his own family, but it’s actually like 1,500 people.”
Later that night, people can come for an outdoor showing of Encanto at the baseball fields. Bowman said the start time is slightly dependent on when the sun sets, but she said 9:15 p.m. is a pretty fair estimate.
Things will get dusty Thursday evening at the first of three nightly rodeos that will take place through Saturday.
“We’re honoring all of our military, so it’s going to be a pretty special night,” Bowman said. “We’ve got some highlights for that and we go through the branches of the military thanking them.”
On Saturday, kids will sell their animals at an auction beginning at 9 a.m. with the winning animals.
For Bowman, who’s been around to attend the fair for the past 10 years but didn’t see much of the business side until she started with Parks and Rec in March, the fair means a welcome respite from the busy day-to-day Wasatch County residents experience. She also emphasized that she married a local, and he’s given her perspective on how important the annual celebration is here.
“It’s just easy. Life is so fast. Things move so fast,” she said. “Attending the fair, it’s kind of that throwback to childhood of carelessness and hanging out with friends, visiting with people you haven’t seen in a long time. … It’s just plan good old-fashioned fun, and I think that’s what a lot of us miss throughout the year.”
As a first-year member of Parks and Rec, she’s had a front-row seat of the 25 full-time staff members putting their everything into planning and coordinating the event.
“The tenure at Parks and Rec is some of the longest tenure I’ve seen anywhere. My boss has been with Parks and Rec for almost 30 years, the director’s been there almost 30 years, Amari (Scovil has been there almost 30 years, and everyone is in that 10+ range,” she said. “They start planning this for the next year as soon as the fair’s over for the next year, and there’s fair briefings with various entities throughout town.”
She said they bring in first responders to help, and the process comes together with a level of comradery she wasn’t aware of until she saw the event from the planning side.
A complete schedule of events is available on Parks and Recreation’s website.