Preview of the 1988 Sonoma County Fair

Sonoma County chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned, according to the famed plant wizard Luther Burbank Diverse County, with 1,010,000 acres of land on 1574 miles of scenic roadways, Cinema County is rightfully famed for its agriculture did a culture, industry and

recreation, as well as for the amazingly successful ethnic and economic mixture of its more than 340,000 residents on for the forward looking philosophy of its local governing bodies. Now we invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in the eighties with your host, rich

McGlinchey. How you doing, everybody And welcome to a special account in the eighties. This is our pre fair show where we get some people from the Cinema County Fair some of our officials out there, and we're gonna find out what's going to happen in this magnificent

1988 Sonoma County fair that will start July 25th run through August 7th. Uh, the guests here today are on the right of your screen. On my left is Jim Lynch, the president of the Stomach County Fair Board of directors, over on the far left of your

screen is Jim Moore. He's the general managers and on County Fair and between Jim and I is the lifeblood of the fair herself. Meaning doll and Jane. Hi, Janey. Nice to have you here, Jim. Happy field. Uh, the 1988 Sonoma County Fair is going to start

on July 25th actually start on July 24 with a flower show preview. But then on Monday, the fair will open the ceremonies. That's all. That's our thing. But there will not be any horse racing on that day. And our guests would tell us about that in

just a couple of moments. Janey, let's go to you first to the marketing director and also the entertainment coordinator. So maybe you could give us some of the highlights of this year's fair. Well, you know, we have a lot of old favorites that are gonna be

happening at the fair this year. We, of course, have one of the largest themed flower shows in the country. Were having a professional rodeo, cowboys association, rodeo, live thoroughbred horse racing, lots of entertainment and just a little bit of everything. One of things were really excited

about is that our Farmers Day program has been really expanded this year. We're looking at having a lot of satellite events. Everybody who comes to the fair on Sunday, July 31st is going to know it's farmer stay. We're gonna having a treasure hunt for kids. Animals

everywhere. Tours the livestock, Gary, lots of things going on there. I think every day you come to the fair, you will find things to do. One of our big goals is to have it so that if you pay to come through the gate or not, if

you come on a discount day, you should be entertained all day long from 10 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. We think we've succeeded with that. Well, Jane, I've worked with you in the last few years doing these programs. It certainly had a

fair. And I commend you on that because coming in that there early in the morning, seeing things, the activity, getting ready for everything and then starting at 10 o'clock, there is really something going on, and it never stops. There's lots of action. Okay. Um, the theme

this year is T G I. You can make whatever you wanted that Italy. It's night got. It's fair time. But Jim Lynch, why is it there featuring goats this year? Well, each year for the past several years, as you know, we've tried to pick a species

livestock animal that figures prominently in the agriculture Sonoma County. And we've had, uh, dairy cattle. We've had sheep. We've had poultry. Last year, prior to that, we had hogs. And so now we're deciding to feature goats because the dairy goat industry here in Sonoma County is

something that's becoming quite prominent. And so we thought it would be appropriate to feature. Goes is a species. And what will be doing will be having a lot of exhibits on goats, the various breeds of goats, everything from pygmy goats to Nubians to all kinds of

different goats. And hopefully we're gonna be able to educate the fair going public about the gold industry here in Sonoma County. So I think it'll be a lot of fun. Isn't there already a redwood embargoed association or something they're staging or helping your state? They've been

working with us. Yeah, and providing us with a lot of information and They've been working very hard for us in promoting goats this year. So again, I think we're gonna have a lot of fun with it. Well, next year we can feature the peregrine Falcons baby

bunnies air next, but so there are a lot of new activities every year. The fair. But what are some of the major new activities that will see out of the 1988 there way have a lot of new contest this year. We're always trying to get fairgoers

involved. One of things we've discovered is that if a fair Gore gets a chance to stop watching and start doing, they have a lot better time at the fair. So we're gonna be doing a lot of things, everything from team logos, contests where you come up

when we will match you with three people you have never met before and give you a mound of £20 of Legos and ask you to build a structure and 1/2 hour that ought to be entertaining. I can hardly wait to see grown people confronted with a

four year old who knows more than they do, but we'll have all kinds of things like that. And we also have a lot of people have heard about our couch potato contest. We have selected, um, a representative couch potato to spend 14 days at the Cinema

County for watching television and chatting with the public. And he will be stationed in one of our exhibit buildings. And I'm not gonna tell you which one. You need to come to the fair and and visit. Investigate all our exhibit buildings and visit the mall, and

you will be able to find the couch potato and say hello to him. That's that's some of the new things or anything else. Well, we, of course, have are same carnival back that we had last year. Ray Camera shows it is about as close to Disneyland

is. You're gonna get at a county fair. It's really spectacular, and they are coming back with even more rights in the carnival game. These huge, enormous rides air called spectaculars, and they're bringing even more of them back this year. One of them that they've talked about

that they're real excited about us seeing is they bought some brand new rights, and one of them is a haunted house, which they say is truly incredible. So I'm looking forward to that. Well, you know, Ray, can it shows your last year was your first year.

That was your first year's manager, Jim, and the recanted shows got the most amazing compliments from the public in general. They said, first of all, that they have landscaped the area. They made it look attracting secondarily it was. It has won awards for safety. So that

Ray comic show was a great move on your part to bring that in. Um, let's see, uh, how about entertainment? There's two major entertainers I know this year and their new You want to talk about them from now? One of the things that we're doing this

year, we're going back to some paid entertainment. We have done this in a long time. One of the complaints we've had from people in the past is that they go to the big shows. They have to stand in line. They're not sure they're gonna get a

seat. They don't know what kind of a seat they're gonna get. So this year are two top acts. Emmylou Harris and Michael McDonald will both be paid shows and tickets are available for 24 and $6 so it's basically a nominal charge to make sure you get

guaranteed a seat. So that's Emmylou Harris on Thursday, July 28th and Michael McDonald on Thursday, August 4th. And both of those will be Oppa. Chris Beck, Arena. I'm real excited about both of those shows, and we also have a big lineup of free entertainment. We've got

John Anderson, Tower of Power, Eddie and the Tie John Entwistle. We're having a fiddler's contest with fiddlers coming from all over the State Blues Festival, featuring Little Milton in his review. Swing Dance with forties and fifties, kind of Glenn Miller. Kind of swing music. That will

be nice. That will be now that will be on Wednesday, July 27th. Rich, you don't wanna miss that one. And of course, we have all of our regular grounds acts. We have foreground stages. We have our Mexican village with a very strong program of South of

the Border music, and they're that high. It will be highlighted on Sunday, July 31st with a Mexican fiesta in the red with theater, then on the park stage. We feature over the 14 days more than 24 different acts and many of those yet many of those

bands air from around here. We're so lucky. The Cinema County has so many fine musicians, and then on the best pocket in the community stages. We have acts like magicians and jugglers and people way featured. Sgarbi is always there Scorpius so educational, but he's also a

lot of fun on those stages. We also have a contest like James Webb, earthy mustache contest, bubble gum, family look alike and all of those things. We We figure that we will have between five and 7000 people participating in on the spot contest this year. So

that'll before, let me let me digress from the questions we had down here and ask you something else. You became the manager fair in 1987 and and you took over. Ah, huge job over there and unfortunately, suffered a very unfortunate year, losing years only using here,

I guess a year before you come over last year it was, I'd like to think, practically certainly due to your management in your and your staff and what you really reverse that trend. And it became a real successful year last year. Uh, is that the hope

you hope? Naturally. But does that look like you've established the pattern? Do you feel like you have? Well, I wouldn't take credit for turning around last year. I think we had a lot of good things going for us, including all the things that Jane has talked

about. I think the year before that they just had an unlucky year. That and it seemed to be true of of the other fairs, the summer affairs in that year, 1986 1987 Again, the luck went the other way, and we had a successful fair, and we

hope to do the same this year. Well, and I'll say this What? You probably won't say they get a lot of They took a hard look at their situation. They made cutbacks where they had to without cutting the quality to fair. And I think that you

people on Roger certainly pays my there crusher. Craigan Weeks managed to the Giants. He stays Roger Hayes, I think, of course, a tremendous asset to you on the fiscal end of it. 1988 is a big fare on. I want to talk to you a little bit

about the racing, but I'll get to that in a moment. But one question I want to ask is, how much money do we provide for horse racing? Approximate. You know, what's our purse structure amount to these days? Uh, we're are persons that are in excess of

a $1,000,000. I think this year probably about 1.3 million for all breeds. That would be the quarter horses. Apple is's throw bread. That's pretty impressive, because I don't know if you are rarely gentlemen. But last year the there in its third day, 13 day, I should

say racing season handled 23 million $273,000 that figures out to approximately one point $1,000,000 a day. Now that was not a leader with money. Wager that their but the satellite waging will touch on that a little later. There's a number of other sort sites I should

say around Northern California, where our races air beamed to their They could make their Woodring and the council's part of our pool and made it very, very successful and back to something. The flower Joe is always amazingly popular, spectacular part of the fair tell us a

little bit about this year's show. Well, this year the theme is going to be the Gardens of Oz, and it is marking the 50th anniversary of the release of the immortal movie The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. All those great folks back in 1938 which

was really quite a revolutionary thing at the time. That's right. That's right. It's a classic. So are very talented. Designer Jacquie Defray came up with the idea and is transforming that hall of flowers at the fairgrounds into Oz. It's just it's incredible with Yellow Brick Road

and the whole thing. We're even gonna have a rainbow, which I think is gonna be spectacular. So it's as you know, Jane mentioned. It is probably one of the largest theme flower shows in the country, at least in the western United States, and it is really

one of the highlights for Fair, where I think this year's theme really lends itself quite well to the creativity of our professional gardeners, nurseries and so forth, and it's it's gonna be great. It's years passed. The Fair Association has received telegrams and the letters complimenting the

flower show from as far back as the East Coast. That's right, people directly visiting and that sort of thing thought it was spectacular. And I think the last year's show with Jackie Jeffrey was your chief designer last year. And that was a fantastic show that the

Golden Gate Bridge in there. And this year I've seen the preliminary hearing This this is going to be fascinating. And if you love the Wizard of Oz and incidentally, this is the 50th anniversary of that movie. And if you love the Wizard of Oz, you're gonna

love that flower show. Um, Jim, we said a moment ago, we talk about the horse races. Uh, how about the horse race is how many days of racing that we're going to have, what kind of racing and we're gonna have? What kind of betting? Kanai dio.

I mean, can we do way? Have 13 days of racing, Aziz Usual that the big difference this year is that rather than running on that first Monday, the opening day, we will run on the middle Sunday, so there will be no racing the first day, the

opening day of the fair, But there will be racing on the first Sunday of the fear, and that's a big change that from what we have done here, it's on account in the past. The reason for that is too full. First of all, the logistics of

running on Sunday has always been a problem because you know they're running all of those horses. All the horsemen and all the officials that that put those races on are down a Valeo, just previous to being here in Santa Rosa, and they run on Sunday. And

for all of those years in the past, they've had to make that move overnight from Valeo up here to Santa Rosa. And that's always been very, very hard on those people that were involved in that movie. And they have for a long time requested that we

not running their first Monday and pick up the middle Sunday instead. The second reason for it is simple economics. Ah, weekend Day just does about twice a swell as a Monday, especially in terms of Mitchell handle commissions to the track contributions to the horseman's purses and

so forth. So with the especially you mentioned earlier that we are simulcasting our races. And so a little bit over half of our total audience is outside of Sonoma County at these different satellite facilities. And with that group, that Sunday date is especially useful. And it's,

ah, very important to in terms of the economics of the thing. And that was the second reason for going to that running that middle sending. All right, we're gonna pause right here. Let's addition bringing the audience of public service announcement. But stay with us because we're

gonna be right back and talk more about the upcoming in 1988 Sonoma County Fair, which is going to be fantastic back with you in just a moment. What is this place anyway? I know. Let me do it way. These truth, truth, truth, truth t Well, what

is it said? I don't want to. Stupid. If we don't end illiteracy in America, it may end us. Ah, Thought from the American Association of University Women. I'm Pat Benatar. I'm a singer. I'm not an expert on AIDS, but you don't have to be to know

the facts about aids. All this fear that surrounds AIDS is really not gonna help. What will make a difference is research and understanding. The bottom line is that AIDS is preventable. So please get hold of the fax. Because if you don't know what's going on, it's

time to get an education. Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County needs. We're talking to three officials of the Sonoma County Fair Association. We're talking about the upcoming 1988 so no one can figure it's gonna be a dandy. The theme is T G I F

Fair starts on Monday, July 25th actually Sunday, July 24th If you count the Flower Show Preview, which is a spectacular event and is held for charity, and the fair actually starts on the 25th and it will run through August 7. Now, as Jim told you a

moment ago, the racing will actually begin on August. A big apartment on July 26th and run through August 7th, 13 straight consecutive days. Uh, we talked about the entertainment, Janey, but what about the contest that you're gonna have this year? You always have a lot of

fantastic you mentioned a couple of but go through that list. Well, we have a contest for just about everyone I know that no matter who you are, we have. We have a lot of contest that you sign up for on the spot, and then we have

a few that you sign up for ahead of time. Among those that you sign up ahead of time. We have our amateur talent show, which is always trillion experience. And that will be on Thursday, July 28th in the red with theater. And we have everything from

Children playing the organ to tap dancers to know Accordions signed up yet this year. But I'm sure it's just a matter of time. And then the following Thursday on August 4th, we have something for those who don't even profess to have any talent. That's the lip

sync contest, and the way that works is that they bring their tape in and they pretend to be singing, and the tape takes care of all the music, and that's a lot of fun because they dress up like their in music videos and do things like

that. And we have done that in the past where we have had contestants who dragged the whole audience into it, and sometimes there will be 2000 people in the crowd getting into this, too. Among those that you sign up for on the spot we have, ofcourse,

bubble gum bubble blowing every day for all ages. We don't discriminate. Milk, mustache, long hair, whistling family look like family. Look like it's fun because sometimes you will get families who will enter in every division, so they'll come parading back up on the stage over and

over again. They'll enter under Mother, daughter, sister, family, brother, sister over and over again. We get to know these people really well. We have people who have been entering family lookalike for years. We've seen some kids grow up in that contest. How about the stages are

quite a few stages. You name those for us? Yeah, we have the best pocket stage where we have most of our contests, and we have writing entertainment. This year, one of the acts will have is a local actor called Rankers, marionette review, and rank is from

Sweden, and she has created these marionettes that air absolutely incredible. Then the park stage, where we have much of our musical entertainment everyday. From noon until 10 o'clock, we have bands there, the community stage is relatively new. This will be our second year with community stage.

We have community acts like little dancers in gymnasts mixed in with score, be the clown and a few other things the Mexican village stage has south of the border. Latin American, Mexican kinds of entertainment. And then we have also have entertainment in the kids area. The

kids there is kind of a nice place for people who have small Children who want to get away from the rest of the fair. If you're if you need a break, you go there and we have Children's circus acts, and we also have a place where

you can feed and change your babies and take a break. And one of the special new things that we're doing for kids this year's were having theme days. We are going to CeCe really think, Oh, this is gonna be an experiment. We'll see how it goes.

We're going to be doing Christmas in July. Halloween comes early Jungle adventure, where we all get a chance to directors and yells out, Ah, circus days and down on the form. So we will be doing everything from decorating a Christmas tree. Teoh being having a costume

parade, It's It's definitely gonna be interesting. One of the things I want to try and I don't know how this well this is gonna work is we're gonna get some string, and we're gonna try to figure out exactly how long a dinosaur would be. I don't

know about you, but I have real trouble visualizing that. So we're gonna We're gonna give it a try. Try line some kids up to make a dinosaur. Well, you can see there's gonna be a heck of a lot of fun. You know, I want to go

through a few of the basics with a fair I've told you already. It starts on the 25th and runs through August 7. Now the gates open basically a 10 o'clock in the morning. They go on for 10 in the evening, but the basic there and the

carnival, I believe, goes from new killed 12 midnight. The admission is $4 for adults. That person's 13 years or older for those who are six through 12 are seven through 12. I should say it's $1 for youngsters six and under or the military in uniform. The

admission is always free and come early and come off it because it's gonna be a marvelous fair. What is it Just said that cost $4 to get in. But that leads me into the question we ask you. Are there any discounts anywhere? Oh, yes, we want

to make it possible for everybody. Go to the fair. So if you plan well, you can get in for cheaper on the second Monday, August 1st is half price day. All adults get in for $2. Both Thursday, July 28th in August 4th or Kids days and

all kids 12 and under get in for free those days, and we have quite a few other discounts that will be listed in the newspapers and things. For like, I think there's one day where you get in for half price with the TV 50 fund card.

There's another day where you get in half price with a discount coupon, so there are quite a few ways one of the most expensive parts of the carnival for people of the fair pick people with kids is the carnival, so you can use a both two

states from 12 noon until eight o'clock at night. You can pay $10 ride all of the rides until you're just sick to your stomach for just go for broke. Yeah, I should say so. Uh, couple, three questions were down to about five minutes. Uh, what about

the junior livestock auction? That's always a big deal, But what does that take place? Tell us something about that Theatrical auction dates will be Wednesday, July 27th for the Rabbit Pens and for the Lambs. And then on Friday, August 5th will be for the hogs. The

steers and the poultry depends of chickens. And right now, even as I speak volunteers solicitors from the Junior Livestock Auction Committee or in the community trying to find buyers for these kids market animals for H F F A. Youngsters and independent junior youngsters that are raising

these animals will be sure that showing him at the fair and there will be auctioning them off. And the price is obviously you're going to be higher than market prices and which would be paying in the stores? Probably. But the idea is to help these kids

out to recognize their efforts so that they can go ahead and put the money that proceeds from the auction towards buying an animal or a project for next year. And I think last year we did well over $400,000 at the auction. So it's a large. It's

a large show, and I just think it's a great program. And of course the backbone of our fair is agriculture. And I think that nothing exemplifies that better than seeing these, these kids working with their animals, raising these animals, showing him and then bring him in

for auction. So it's it's a great program, it really is. And if you haven't been to the fair and watch the judging, you should, because it's it's It's beautiful in a sense of the word, it's emotional. These kids really do a wonderful job, and as you

say, the bidding is higher than it might be normally. But you're helping these kids keep their agriculture, our agricultural products going. They raised these. They put a great deal of care in these animals and many times they're tearful when they auction them off do. But the

point is they do get paid for all that that effort and it makes it all worthwhile. Two things is the admission that you pay that covers everything except those two paid. Nor there's 34 page shows about it will be a destruction of the only things you

have to pay additional for our Emmylou Harris, Michael McDonald, The Rodeo, which is July 29th in July 30th and the destruction Derby. And if you want to go the destruction to get your tickets early, we always so that will be the last Sunday, August 7th that's

on the last day is yes, I never understand it, but I it's scary, but it is our most popular event. How about all the other entertainment that you provide after the fair, though, is comes right with the president mission. Soon as you come through that gate,

you're entitled to do and watch everything we've got going. That's beautiful. All right. Now let's see how many entries in competition. There's a tremendous amount of entries in all categories after we're really excited about that. One of the most important things about our fair and the

things that make spares different from a shopping mall are entries. People who enter their photography. They're painting their canned goods and entries air up 50% this year. And we're very excited about that because that means all of those people are a part of the fair. We're

gonna We're looking forward to having them come. This is normal. County Fair is in its 52nd year on. I've had the pleasure of attending every one of those, except two years. I was in the service. I was course have been infant in arms when I was

the 1st 1 but nonetheless have seen them all. And it's an institution. It's a fabulous institution. It's growing to a better status. I think that it's ever enjoyed before. This last couple of years have just been two years ago. We had a tough year before that.

We've gone right up the ladder, and last year we started that swing up again, and I'm sure it'll continue this year. Have you any final thoughts? We got about a moment left, uh, just encourage everybody come out to the fair. This is your fair, and we

think we really have a great one this year, so we're all looking forward to it. G. James just echoed what Jim said. We hope everybody comes out with that flower show is just absolutely fantastic. If you saw Jackie show last year and everyone thought it was

good, this one is even bigger and better. Really beautiful, champ. All right, I agree. You've got to come to the fairy. It it's Sonoma County and it's so important. And I think we can honestly say they should. We've got something for everyone. I have always said

that. One other thing I want to say is this. Your admission is $4 to go to school mechanic here, and I honestly believe that's the best entertainment investment in Sedona County year round. You could go there and you could see more things and have more fun

in more ways than anywhere else, Jane said. There is something for everyone. Stomach County Fair. So come on out to the fair This year, these people and I will be looking for you out there. Now I'm gonna have to say so long. We'll be back with

you next week with another member of the county government, family or related agencies such as our Sonoma County fair. Until then, this is Rick. 20 things so long. Good luck needs every one of you and I'll see you at the fair