At the fair

How you doing everybody. Welcome to the wonderful 1997 Sonoma County Fair Fair. That's noted for having something for everyone. It's now in its 61st year and the reason it's noted for having something for everyone is it does. It has a magnificent commercial display, fantastic flower show,

wonderful exhibits wherein the people of Sullivan County exhibits prizes. And you've got the marvelous carnival, Great Midway, You've got the racing program which is probably second to none and there's just something for everyone. But you know, to make a fair like this as successful as it

is. You first have to have money. The Sonoma County Fair has an excellent one sitting with me right now. Roger Hayes controller and it does look like a little. Yeah, thanks for asking me to be here. It's always a pleasure. But listen, let's jump has just

started. But when this affair ends, what do you as a controller have to do? The first thing we have to do rich is see where we're at on this year. So we tally up all the receipts, check our expenditures and see what we have left over.

Then we begin our budgeting process for the next year. And I've been doing this now for 11 years and Jim Moore has been here 11 years as well. So we have it down to a pretty good routine roger. What is the budget? In other words, how

many dollars are we talking about? Well, this year? Budgets 9.3 million. It's been as high as 10.5, 11 million depending on the capital expenditure programs that we do at the fair. So it varies, but that gives you an idea how much taxpayer money we receive. No

direct taxpayer support Rich. It's one of the things that the fair is a self supporting, self sufficient entity. And just one more wonderful thing about it is, how many people do you think about how much money we're expecting crowds totaling approximately 325,000 people this year? Rich?

It should be about $7 million in revenue directly to the fair. Obviously, it's a big part of our annual budget. It's one of the best in the Western United States has been voted roger. How secure do you bring the crystal? Well, you know, it's always a

little risky in the fair business because you try to do so much business in a two week period, you could have bad weather. But I've been here 11 years now, we've had positive cash flow every year. Rich. We have over two million in reserves and I'd

say we're in excellent shape. One of the things I didn't have this down, but I think it's important about how many people do you employ during the Approximately 850 employees work directly for the fair rich and that doesn't count all the employees working at all the

concessionaires in the Carnival, etc. So on any given day, there's several 1000 people working here. It really is Roger one question to ask other folks here. What are you looking forward to? That's a good question. Rich and being a Sonoma County native. I grew up going

to the fair. And the thing that I really look forward to is it's just the annual tradition of going to the fair and it's really a celebration of Sonoma County and our summer life here is absolutely right. Father. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we're talking with Roger

Hayes, the physical controller from the county of Sonoma. And we're gonna be talking to other folks in executive positions around the county fair. Find out what they do to help provide for the next pair. But don't go away because there's a lot more on the Sonoma

County fair. Well here I am with our fair mascot barnaby. Hey barnaby, is it pretty good out here? It's a fair today. So what direction do you like to walk at the fair? What do you see the most this way? Yes. And that way and that

way you mean like everything at the fair is the fun thing to do. Yeah, I thought so. So do the kids always like to come up and give you hugs. I bet the kids are about your favorite thing. It's a fair. Well listen, when you have

a chance come over and say hi to barnaby because he loves everybody at the fair. The entertainment you find every year at the county fair is among the finest. You'll find at any fair in the Western United States, the woman who arranges for and coordinates. All

that entertainment is with me right now, janie janie is nice to have you back. Okay, jenny. Uh, we know that you work 12, 14, 15 hours a day while affair is on with all your duties. Uh, how soon after the fair ends do you have to

start planning entertainment for next year's fair? Well, we begin as soon as the harvest fair. So the harvest fair is the first weekend in october and right after that's over, we begin putting together our budgets and making our wish list for next year's entertainment with major

acts nationally known as what you do is you make your list of who you'd like to see and then you get on the phone to start trying to find out who's gonna be available. They put together tours. Some of them go to europe, some of them

are just out of our price range. So we start with the sky and work down to the real world. How do you establish a balance between your free shows and entertainment? Well, it's become much easier now because we really, almost all of our shows are free.

Um, this year, our main entertainment, we're charging for 600 seats right up front. But everything else in the theater is free. So that's made it a lot easier. We don't really, you know, lock a lot of people out that way. The only shows that are paid

for everyone are the rodeo, so everything else is free. What we try to do is we try to have something for everyone And we believe that you pay to get in the gate, you ought to be able to have as much entertainment as you you could

stand. So, so we try to have something going on from the time the gate opens until the time the gate closes and all of that. Hopefully free to anyone who pays their fair admission. What's brand new Janie in the way of entertainment for 1997? Oh, rich

magic question. Well now I promise not to give a laundry list so I won't go down the list of all the main stars, but I want to talk about some of the Variety X. Um I think we have the perfect for entertainment this year. We have

something called Catskills, Man named Gregory Popovich. He was with the Moscow Circus, he's considered one of the best jugglers in the world, has put together a show that I believe is unique and what he has done is he's gone down to the main society and he's

found himself some cats that know how to do tricks and he has put them on stage and it is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life. If you have had a cat and I've ever even tried to get them to come when

you called, you will understand how truly magnificent this show is. The man, the cats, It's amazing. The cats go on the high on um, they walk a high pole, they leap down. They even do a little trapeze work. I think this is gonna be the act

to see this. We also have our bringing back the reptile safari they haven't been here for, I think four or five years. So anyone who feels the need to cuddle up to some snakes can come to the fair for that. We're doing something new this year

for the kids were having a magic school bus live, which is a live version of a really popular PBS Children's program. That will be the last three days of the fair, but it's amazing. There's just gonna be so much going on this year. I think people

are going to have to come five or six times just to get it all in. Any one of the things that county fair is famous for his participation events where the audience gets involved. What do we got lined up for? 99 Oh, this is a big

year for us. We're taking a big step forward. You know, we have always done bubblegum and family look like and whistling, but this year we're going big time, We're going into the game show business. I've hired a professional host, we're interviewing for savannah's, we're gonna have

uh buzzers and lights and prizes and we're gonna be doing game shows twice a day every day during the fair. Everything from the family challenge to our own version of, Well, we're not allowed to say price is right, but essentially that's it. Uh, and of course

my, a particular favorite quiza, Rama and fairgoers, anybody who comes to the gate is, can be in the studio audience and is equally possible that they will be chosen to compete janie. Thanks somebody Ladies and gentlemen, this moment provides some of the best entertainment I've ever

seen And I'm sure that you will have ever seen when you're 1997. Don't go away. There's lots more to come. Hey, it's mostly magic. I'm here at the Grace Pavilion with john and ken and they're from mostly magic. And this is the Grace Pavilion. Lots of

fun And we're going to find out about magic here at the fair. So john tell us, where are you located? Most of the time when you're not at the fair? Most of the time. You'll find me at 3 11 D Street between 4th and 5th downtown

santa rosa. And tell me, what do you do? And mostly magic. I mean, what, what kinds of things? Besides, let me just say we have a great time there. Okay, we have fun. People come in, we show them magic tricks, We show them stuff that they

can do, they can go home entertain their kids entertain their family and we also have professionals that come in serious books and videos on how to learn more magic tricks and we entertain people from 5, 205. Really ken when people come here to mostly magic, do

they come and ask you about things that they remembered when they were kids? Absolutely. Most, most people have been interested in magic at some point in their childhood. So come back and relive your childhood basically. What are some of the tricks or the magic that you

get asked about? Mostly it's maybe a trick deck of cards that maybe they got for christmas or magic set. Maybe just a particular trick and some of the gag items we have like a whoopee cushion or cigarette loads or something like that When I was a

kid, I had one of those little guillotines that chopped your finger off. What about some other special ones? Do you remember any of that? You were a kid that you like, stink bombs are big, don't tell the teachers that, but a lot of the old magic

tricks like the ball and the vase and the floating match, which I could demo for you if you like. It's a very quick trick, we'll definitely, we're going to want to see some of those tricks you have a couple of cards here, you see, and would

you hold on to this match, check out that match, make sure that's a solid match. Wanna buy a bridge, you take the match and you place it on the card like this. And then now you can hold one of the cards when I wave my hand

over the match actually works a little bit better. When I wave my hand over the match, you'll see it beginning. Can you see it beginning to float? It's starting to float right in front of the other card. You can actually wave it underneath and show that

a really and I am standing very close and it is rising up. Everyone needs to come and ask about your favorite tricks. Ask about show your kids they're going to have so much fun here and come and see mostly magic at the Grace Pavilion here. I

am talking about wastewater and I'm with Ali Davidson of the Sonoma County Water agency. Hello, Ali. Hello Allison. So if you would tell us, what is the water agency doing about wastewater and what do we need to know about wastewater? Alison, we're doing some incredible things

here at the Sonoma County Water Agency. Some of those are focusing on our ultra low flush toilet programs. We have active programs with the city of Petaluma and Rohnert Park as well as our sanitation districts and zones that treated wastewater is being used. It's being reduced

first through our local showerheads and toilets and then it's being recycled or reused and that is in order to preserve our Sonoma County farmlands and goes to irrigate golf courses and parks and then you said we also irrigate things like cemetery. That's right. Anything that we

can put treated water on? We will we will reduce the water we are using and we will reuse it recycle it. And here at the Sonoma County Fair you can actually see how low flush toilet works. You can see how to prevent water leaks and find

them in your house. You can explore all kinds of options. And ali will also give you information on how you can get involved where you can get information. You have a I sure do. This is hot. The press. It's the Sonoma County Water agency brochure and

we've got a map of our water distribution system and please give us a call and we'd love to send this to you free of charge. It's just a wonderful piece of information about our agency and what we can do for you. And how about a phone

number? All right. You can call me at the water conservation program at 5471933 or the Sonoma County water agency at 5 to 6 537. Oh, thank you very much. This is a very interesting booth and everyone should stop by here and find out what you can

do to preserve a very valuable resource. I would like you to meet cinnamon roll Extraordinaire craig Brandt craig. Hey, this is great. How long have you been coming to the fair and serving up your cinnamon rolls personally. I've been coming here for 16 years. This is

my 16th show. And what do you just, I mean there's always a line here. How many people do you think you serve over the course of the two weeks of the fair? Uh you know, we don't even count. It's just it's just you know, attention to

our customers, you know, we just keep them rolling though. So do you just is this the only fair that you do know our company actually does 20 shows a year and you go all over the country or just in California? We mostly do texas and Arizona

new Mexico. Well, it would seem to me that you're not home very often actually. I'm home about five months out of the year. And what do you do when you're home? Right on the pacific ocean in California. I would think that he would get very fat

having these around all the time. No, we only eat like one just for just for tasting. We were around them too often to actually eat them all the time. Well, these are about the best thing to eat at the fair without a doubt. Well not only

do you have Sonoma County at the Sonoma County Fair, but you can travel all over the world and today we are traveling to Egypt with, my name is rose and I do shows across the country. I've been doing this for several years in the US here.

I also do several shows in europe and I do have a store in Egypt. So everything I carry as a matter of fact is done is made in Egypt and it does come direct from Egypt has not made, where else how do you decide what to

bring the Sonoma County for Sonoma County's audience that sometimes comes to the experience as well as the hard decision. You take chances in some of the merchandise and if they don't move along in the area in the following year, you try to bring other stuff that

you would feel strongly that would fit the people's test and that's how basically we operate. Well you have beautiful things here and it seems like you people would want to come down and see what you have because you're not, you don't have a store locally though.

You do have a place where they can contact you if they've seen something and they haven't gotten it and they still want it and how would they contact you listed in the phone book? I operate at concord California. My phone number is 510 area code 6808523.

And I tell you Sonoma County Fair has been a successful one for me. It's my third year in a row and I'm very proud and glad to be here. Thank you very much and come and experience Egypt now if this was a stain like melted candle

wax, chewing gum tar plato something tough and gummy, you'd use a little bit full strength covered completely. Give it a few minutes and you take it right out and I'll just get this one out real quick here because it's not melted and are set in and

it comes out quicker here. But my sister even got melted crayons out of the car seats with it before but make it into a liquid. This is three tables for the record of water and for your carpets and upholstery to spray it on and buff it

out with the terrycloth washcloth and you'll lift dirt and stains out the same way the crannies lifting right up out of here too. So if you want to get stains out, if you want to learn how to find the newest rubber broom, if you want a

chopper, dicer slicer ginsu knife, you come over to the Grace Pavilion because you'll learn it all. I'm sitting here with Michelle welcome, the assistant manager of the Sonoma County Fair. And Michelle welcome is a woman of many duties that you're going to find out here in

just a few moments, Michelle, first of all, thank you. Tell us everybody. What do you do? What are your main duties? I guess I should say during the actual two weeks of the fair itself during the two weeks of affair, I'm responsible for all the commercial

exhibits, food concessions and corporate sponsorships as people walk into the 40,000 square foot pavilion, they'll see it filled with a variety of commercial exhibits, all of which our office has booked. And then as they walk around the fairgrounds, you know, they'll be surrounded by the sights

and sounds of wonderful food and all of those concessions we've booked. The great provision is just packed every year with it is we have 206 spaces in the pavilion. Alright, Michelle, What do you do during the 11 months between the county fairs every weekend here at

the fairgrounds? With the exception of basically, we shut down from july 4th, you know, we have a big july 4th celebration and from july 4th until about august 10th. We don't have any events because all of our, our attention is focused on producing the affair, the

affair, but the rest of the year, every weekend we have anywhere from 5 to 10 simultaneous events going on in various buildings. Well, the fair this year ends on all this sport now. How soon after that, when you start running out the facilities to businesses and

local organizations? The very next weekend we have events going on. Our crew has five days to clean up, actually four days to clean up after the fair. And we start right in with our interim program again. Uh, How many people or firms do you rent the

fairground facilities due to during the course of the year? And how much revenue does it bring in? We deal with over 200 clients annually that generate a million and a half to the fairgrounds, How many clients? Over 200 that generate a million and a half dollars.

And that means that every week there's something going on that which you've arranged right, basically we look to produce $40,000 gross each weekend to cover our expenses of operation is all the fairground space rented out for 1997 all of it and more. I've actually sold a

couple of extra spaces that we hadn't necessarily planned on going to be in layers pretty soon and we try to keep it interesting, we try to bring back the favorites every year and then book some new things that are new and different to keep it interesting

for fairgoers, Michelle, what are you personally looking forward to most specifically during the 1997? I think I pretty much match the mold of the typical fare go er the thing that I always enjoy the most is the hall of flowers and one of the nice things

this year is that the theme for the hall of flowers and the theme for the fair tie in together around the world in 14 days in the hall of flowers and your passport to fun And we really put together some nice offerings in terms of entertainment

and and every in the food and beverage and and all the different things that we have available to the, but the hall of flowers is always a favorite. We were talking to Michelle wake from a woman who's very busy 52 weeks out of the year away.

A lot more to come. You know when most people think about fair food, they think about corn dogs and cotton candy and things like that. Well this year we have something extra special in the way of fair food. We have the chefs showcase restaurant and this

year serving at the restaurant and preparing the food is show. And we're going to talk a little bit about what you're doing here at the fair. And why don't you tell me first, where are your restaurants located? Because I hear you have to. That's right. We

just open a new location in downtown cinema in a beautiful historic cinema hotel and right across the street We have the original Zinos. We've been there for 12 years and we're here to bring the best of both restaurant and to make sure people can have a

nice meal, air conditioning and it's it's beautiful inside. And why don't you tell us what type of food you prepare and also tell us where you learn to prepare this food. Okay. It's a family tradition. I'm the fourth generation in the restaurant business. I learned a

lot from my father a lot of seafood and pasta from my mother. I learned from here to California cuisine. But you didn't learn California cuisine in California, you learned it in the south of France. That's right when you start like this and when you came here,

where did you come first? New york? First visit my sister and then to visit a friend of my father in napa California. And that's why I've been introduced to this beautiful region and went back to new york, decided to stay, find out I was still here.

He needed a chef, come back and work for him. So I worked in napa first wonderful french restaurant and then moved on my own and moved to Sonoma and opens for the first time. And you've been there for 12 years. And how long are you going

to be at the fair? Every day, Every night. And what time do you start serving lunch from 12 to 8 every day and then just give me a couple of things that you prepare here today that people could choose from. For example, it's a beautiful, it's

a hot summer. We have this wonderful salad of the day which is fresh spinach with grilled chicken in the warm balsamic vinaigrette. This is very refreshing filling. It sounds very, we have wonderful seafood risotto hamburgers sandwiches. Just something for everyone. I was inside at lunchtime today

and you've got quite a nice crowd there. That's right for the first day. It just goes to show that it is not just corn dogs that people are looking to eat here at the fair that you can have a wonderful Sonoma County gourmet meal here at

the fair and also do all the other things there are to do? I really appreciate you joining us. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi, I'm still here at the fair and I'm with Greg Duncan, the flower show designer Greg. It's great to have you here,

tell me, how did you come up with this year's theme? What is it this year's theme is around the world. In 14 days. I had originally proposed to the fair board that we do based around around the world in 80 days, but they refused to extend

the fair. So we're doing it in 14 days. We're going to all the various countries that were featured prominently in the jules verne novel. What are some of those locations we go to paris venice deep into India because at the Taj Mahal, across to Yokohama Japan,

old san Francisco in the days of the Barbary Coast and end up in an english country garden. You mentioned earlier that there wasn't a hot air balloon in the original book. Most people when they think of the story remember the hot air balloon from the movie,

it wasn't actually in the novel, but it's so well rooted in people's memories that we've created a central fountain with a giant hot air balloon carrying a giant flower pot instead of a gondola? That's great. I had a quick look and it's really beautiful. Can you

tell me where their physical limitations for the landscapers and how did you work around that? I work closely with the landscapers to develop the right amount of grading and type of soil for their gardens. We've replaced all of the skylights in the building to create more

light so that the flowers continue to grow. Um, they have to be very careful about what types of species they use. Uh, some don't like to grow indoors for a two week fair like this. Many of our exhibitors have done this for a number of years

and they're very skilled at how to force and nurture and get plants that will do well and still look good at the end of the fair for their annual plant sale. Well, it certainly is beautiful and I'm sure all of our viewers will enjoy it. Great

having you here, come out and look at the flower show. It's really beautiful. Every year, the Sonoma County Fair attracts about 350,000 visitors. Now. The man who is partially responsible for that number of fairgoers is Fair Publicity Director Larry, Letters with whom I'm sitting right here

in the new beautiful jockey club. We just realized we're going each other 10 years. Okay, Larry, I know that you're busy too. 16 hours a day during the fair to get a whole lot of time off when it's over. We'll get about one night's sleep actually

and then we're onto the harvest Fair, You know, the harvest Fair is a popular event in the first week of october and we're working on the press kits just as soon as the County fair is over. All right now, fair ends, let's say on August four,

how soon after that do you actually start publicizing next year's fair? Yeah, there's a lot of radio stations, television stations on the grounds during our fair. I'll be tentatively talking about next year's fair at that point, but our fair dates really aren't set until the first

of the, of the year. So when we get those fair dates and also the uh, jane Engle and her staff has got a chance to bring in some new attractions. Then we start talking about the, uh, that summer's fair, usually october, I mean february March of

the year, You're also responsible for publicizing this new jockey club vehicle sitting in. Now, tell us more about this new simulcasting facility. It's been open three years now, the California horse racing board nearly 10 years ago and now decided to try to open up racing to

as many people as possible, bringing in these off track facilities throughout the state. The Sonoma County Fairgrounds is the host of one of the, one of the locations of jockey club brand new facility accommodates 500 people. You know, it's the nicest amenities in the world. There's

televisions everywhere and it's all about horse racing. How do you draw people to this new facility? It's interesting, you know, we try to work with. Obviously there's a crowd during the live races here. We advertise in the program. We'll advertise throughout the year on, on television

and radio and newspaper. In addition to that, we're trying to drive group sales. Also, trying to bring in younger people. You know, the sport tends to age and the more younger people we can bring in, we do that with the fair, but also here, larry sports

racing, financially successful, both at the racing itself over the fairgrounds and here. Oh, very much so. Very much so. The especially our races were probably the most successful county fair in northern California, the horse races. The revenues generated from that both here and especially during the,

create the fair that we have. You know, our fair is in fact one of the nicest fairs in the nation for a county fair. And are the Hall of Flowers, the look of the fairgrounds, the improvements we do on the fairgrounds are all associated with the

success of our horse races. That's great. That's great. That provides all these other things. In conclusion here, what is the One thing you might say or what is it you're looking forward to most of the 1997. If you were to ask my five year old son

Thomas, he'd probably say the horse race, but actually, you know, the hall of flowers is a treat. It's just a treat. Watching it being made. Very thank you very much for taking the time to visit with us. It's always a pleasure lots more to come, man.

Sometimes it's easy to get a huge case of brain overload from the extreme amount of stuff you gotta deal with. Hey, everybody's smoking right? That is less than two out of 10 teen smoke. And you know what smoking does for them? And check this smokers spend

about 700 pills a year on cigarettes. That same cash will get you a lot of cool stuff, Jack. So take the load off your brain because when it comes to smoking, you're too smart to stop. Hello, I'm dana D'Errico and I'm out at the racetrack at

Sonoma County Fair and with me today, I have a professional trainer, Gloria Haley Gloria. It's great to have you here today. Thank you. It's great to be here, Gloria, you used to teach and now you're teaching these animals. Why did you make the change? And how

did you do that? Well, it was sort of a natural change. I've always loved horses and I've always loved competition and athletic activities. So I went from coaching kids to coaching these animals. That sounds like a lot of fun. Can you tell me, what do you

do to get a horse on the race track? What does it take to get them there? And how do you select the ones that should be going to the Racetrack. Well, oftentimes I have clients that bring horses that they bred, they take the Mayor pick a

stud breed? The Mayor to the stud that produces a baby. So it's actually from conception on that. They've sort of engineered this entire little athletic beast and other one. Other people go ahead and go to sales and pick a horse out of the sale and and

bring it to bring it to me. And sometimes I actually go to sales and pick the horses out for them. How do you know what to look for at the sale? Well, number one, you look for a horse with a good head, a good I um,

an athletic body, good angles, angles that are, that will create a horse with a long stride and a lot of power behind. So you want a long hip, a nice long sloping shoulder, you want wide between the eyes, certain certain aspects that you what you look

for in physical characteristics by a good head. Do you mean sensible head or do you mean it looks good? Yeah, well, if it looks good, it's usually a sensible head, it's the same sort of, same sort of thing. They're wide between the eyes. They have wide

nostrils so that they can actually bring in more air during the athletic event. They're pretty wide through the gels. You want to have at least enough room for a fist to go right underneath the gels and that will give you enough air through the passageway to

get enough oxygen to their lungs so that they can go ahead and perform through an activity, wow, that's great. Do you find this fulfilling Gloria? Yes, it's absolutely wonderful. I love it. You have to love it to be able to work as hard as you have

to do to do this, would you be doing anything else? Absolutely not. Well, thank you for joining us and come down to the fair and bet some money on the horses, you know, one of the most popular county fair and its growing popularity every year, racing

takes place in the park stage here in the middle of the third round and it's really, really very popular, very helpful gentleman sitting with me, Danny Holmes is the, the host host this year. You've been doing this for several years and I know you've had two

or three partners. Yes, we're very fortunate this year to have Mr Vic Stauffer, who is one of the premier racetrack callers in the nation is the voice of golden gate fields and of the county fair circuit. How long have these seminars seminars have been going on?

About 10 years now, It was started by a local gentleman who owned horses by the name of Tom Newman and of course Rich You and frank White took up the banner of the second year and went through the fifth year and then you brought me on

and I brought bob Gunderson on and last year, Aggie Anderson and now Vic Stopper. Now I am, yes, yes, the seminars are free and they start at 11 o'clock every morning. Now, why do you offer them for the newcomers or for the regular horseplayers? Which we

have something for everyone. We start out our seminars every day. The 1st 15 minutes is devoted to the newcomers and then we have a special guest such as Russell Besar, local trainer Gloria Haley, and then we have a question and answer period of our guests. And

finally, at the end of the seminar, Vic and I are going to try to get some winners for you possible tips on winning horses at the end of the seminar? Yes, we do the last 15 minutes. We give our best bets of the day and kind

of indication of how we're going to be playing the races that day. I know you figure out your winners in the race. You wrote a book called 10 Steps to Winning, that's still in publication. Yes, it is. And since I've been here, I've written another book

called the Ultimate Money management Formula about racehorses? You're going to be quite an author. I hope so. What percentage of your picks one or maybe asking another way last year, how would someone have fared if they have played your selections all along well? If the people

had played $2 on every horse that we gave out last year, You would have wound up with a profit of $560 at the end of the fair? That's pretty good. Now, what time of the seminars there? From 11 to 12 every day on the park stage,

on the park stage and that's located just behind the big building up Danny. I know they've been very successful, I know they will be again this year with you and vic and I wish you all the luck in the world. Thank you very much, Rich ladies

and gentlemen, if you haven't been to a racing seminar and you enjoy horse racing, come on out and listen to what these fellows have to say, it's exciting, it's interesting and sometimes very profitable. One of the best things about the Sonoma County fair is visiting with

the many young people who are showing their animals that they've been busy raising all year long and today we're visiting with Don jones and his ranch in Sebastopol Don, how did you first get interested in raising animals? I got interested in raising animals to my brother,

he started raising pigs when he was 12 and I got it and I got involved through him. Now I'm raising pigs to with him and we do it as a partnership. So we're having a lot of fun together, traveling and doing things like that. That's great.

What kind of special qualities do you think do you think it takes for someone to do this kind of work? Somebody needs to be pretty responsible, They need to be organized in a typical day. How much time do you spend with the animals from in the

summer? From sunup to sundown? If I'm not at the fairs or working or whatever, but when I'm here at the house it's from sunup to sundown. I'm working with them. That's cleaning pens or you know, fixing something that they broke or just building more pens or

whatever needs to be done. Usually I don't really take any vacations, mainly my vacations or whatever I do with four H. R. F. F. A. That I get away through. If I go on a trip with my F. F. A. Or I go somewhere, you know,

four H. That's my vacation. Where do you go to school? Go to school at an early, what kind of activities do you participate in? I play soccer, I'm on the wrestling team and I do swimming. I'm also involved in the band. That's great. Tell us about

the heifer that you brought back from last year's fair. I want a cow through Qantas, the youth organization. They give out animals and scholarships and merit awards to young men and women at the fairs. And so I want her through stew and Marie lambert and now

I just showed her at Petaluma fair and she won. So we're having a lot of fun with her, keeping me busy. What animals are you showing at this fair? I'm showing my birds, my pigs And so I got three things I'm showing. That's great. What are

your plans for the future? Um Maybe at a high school. I try out for maybe a firefighting job for a few years if I can get involved. Maybe be a seasonal or you know full time if I get lucky and I'll stick with that and then

if not maybe go and get a teaching credential and go back and teach Ag or math or something like that. That's great. How do you think your experiences with your animals have helped you prepare for those kind of goals? Um I think it mainly helps out

and really what you want to do in life because I mean there's so many things that F. F. H. And four H. Offer for you. So I mean there's bound to be something that you're interested in that we offer and so I think that's that's kind

of the thing is it really hones in on what you really want to do when you get older and it helps you, thanks don for spending time with us. We wish you the best of luck at the fair. We hope you're very successful and please make

sure that you stop by and visit all these wonderful young people and their animals at the Sonoma County Fair. I'm sitting here with Sheila Quince Sheila is the exhibit and premium supervisors with a fair and more importantly she's a very important cog in the wheel that

makes this fair go around Believe me, Sheila, I know that you work your backside off, so to speak during the fair. But what do you do for the 11 months between the boy? If we all had a dollar for every time we get that question asked,

I think that's probably the most common question asked for people in the fair industry. Because what do you do the rest of the year? Well, there is a a lot that we do once the fair's over. We've got all the finishing work to do with it

regarding filing papers. But immediately after that we start to work on preparing for the next year's fair. It's not unlike somebody preparing for a large party or a wedding. It takes many, many months to plan getting the guidebook ready, Organising 200-plus judges on the phone, contacting

them, negotiating their agreements, getting them all lined up that in a large other lots of stuff going on is all part of getting ready to start our fair. Do you automatically have a lot of exhibitors that come back year after year? We sure do. One of

the things that we do is put a postcard down in each building and we ask individuals that are interested in getting information on the next year's fair to fill it out and then we can then notify them and let them know when everything starts gearing up

for the next year, what type of exhibits can people enter and what prizes do they compete for? Oh, what kind of exhibits first. I think that if there's something that somebody in this community likes to do, we've probably got a class for it. We've got classes

for photography is your thing. We've got a fine art show. That's just wonderful where we hang all the amateur fine art, photography. We've got sculpture, we've got pottery, we've got quilts if you like to bake, we've got a class for you. Yeah, we've got sewing and

of course if your child five years or older in this county, you can enter any of your nice arts and crafts in our junior exhibition. How many people actually enter exhibits at the fair? Are you ready? We have over 12,000 people that will enter close to

22,000 exhibits at this year's fair. Lots and lots of exhibits to process and get awards out and get it all done. It's just wonderful. And we are very pleased to know that it's growing every year. One of the things that fairgoers that enter through the Grace

Pavilion off of Bennett Valley Road will be greeted with. It's a wonderful feature display showing all the different things that we've got for them to visit and see at the fair and we're going to direct their to come on down and take a look at the

livestock area, the red barn and Uncle Sam's farm will be transformed into a livestock information center. We're gonna have daily schedule of events that explain what's going on that particular day down in the livestock area. So a lot more information and a lot more encouragement for

people to travel on down there. You asked me about the auctions if anybody wanted to come by and take a peek at the activity and excitement that goes on during any of our two auctions, I'd invite them to come out and take a look at it.

The first auction is on thursday, july 24th, followed by the next auction, the following thursday on the 31st and this is the accumulation of an effort by about 900 youngsters that have bought their animals, raised them, groom them, fitted them, bring them here too, be evaluated

and ultimately end up selling them at the auction and it's also an opportunity for our community to come together and support kids in this type of a program. All told will probably have $450,000 that will go back to these kids. Ladies and gentlemen, I would say

this one thing, if you have never been out and visited the exhibit buildings and the animal exhibit is a warm hearted thing that will leave a real impression on you, do it by all means, listen, Sheila, what Are you looking forward to most of the 1997

county fair. Well that's an easy, easy question to answer years ago, I was one of those kids that was on the other side of that counter paying my entry fee and getting ready to show. I think when I go down there I got a chance to

revisit my youth. I take a look at those kids in there and the excitement on their faces and the validation they get for all the hard work they do and it brings back a lot of fond memories for me. That's probably the thing I enjoy the

most. One of the nicest people working with the fair crew to Icann Sheila Quince. Ladies and gentlemen, the exhibit and premium supervisor and don't go away lots more to come. Hi, we're standing in front of the Arts and Crafts building at the Sonoma County Fair and

I have with me patty O'Reilly, who is an exhibit staff patty. How long have you been exhibiting here at the fair? This is my 13th year, 14th Kathy harvest Fair. Do you all always work the fair? Yes. Are there a lot of exhibits to be seen

here this year? The exhibits are a little down this year but we have quality, good quality and enough to fill the building. I noticed all of those beautiful cakes inside the Arts and Crafts building. Are they always on display? The decorated cakes are on display the

whole duration of the fair, which is the two weeks, we have breads that came in today and those are just for today and they'll go out on friday in the arts and Crafts building Is this for the senior adults, is that my understanding is the adult

building. Uh this is the Garrett building which the arts and crafts are in. We have the fine arts building which is the ec craft building and it holds our paintings, oil paintings, photography, um pottery work and things like that. And there's a third building, I believe.

The third building is the Finley building and that's where the juniors crafts are. And also the high school makes all the woodwork and that's in the, the far far. This is the south entrance and all these buildings are open throughout the fair with all of the

different display. Yes. How have you seen what has changed over the years here at the Sonoma County Fair. Since you are a long time staff member here. I believe the quality has always been good. It's hard to say that something's changed. I think the decorating has

changed over the years. It was more low key and now it seems to be more grandiose. So I mean there's bigger um bigger things displayed also in the decorating. That's great. So okay, well thank you for joining us and we'll look for you when we come

down soon every year, the Sonoma County Fair is one of the most exciting fun filled events in northern California, but this two week fair doesn't just happen. It takes the full time of fair manager. Jim moore in his entire staff under the guidance of the Sonoma

County Fair board of directors. Now we're sitting here with Jim More Fair Manager and Gerald Villarreal and general judy president for 1997. Okay, now when does your term in after the pair not, can't be soon enough. I know uh, the two of you, jim, maybe you

want to start this out. How much time do you have between the close of one fair and what must you do before the start of the next one? Well, as you know, which, uh, the fair is a year round operation, the fairgrounds, there's many other activities

that occur here in addition to the annual fair. One big event of course is the harvest Fair also produced by the fair. Uh, and those tickets for the Harvest Fair actually go on sale about a week after the, the county fair, but primarily to get ready

for the, the county fair each year. Uh, the fair's over. Generally the first week or the second week of august uh, we start doing budgeting in september reviewing how things went the past fair, how we might want to spend the money, better spend the money the

following year. General, how do you and you and jim share this question. Anyone you like, How do you determine the charge to fairgoers for, let's say paid admissions and the page shows. Well, we want, I guess what we ultimately want is the best entertainment for the

for the amount of money. And so it's it's a balancing act. Uh Sometimes there is a demand for higher end entertainment. Obviously when you get the higher end entertainment uh we don't have deep pockets. So we do have to charge something ideally would like to have

all shows free. But that's that's a matter of economics, it's not practical. Uh Fair board uh kind of an unsung group in many ways. But I know how hard you folks work and how many hours you put in it. I believe you have 15 fair board

members now. Where do they come from? And how did they become directors? Well, each county supervisor has uh 150.3. Oh I see. Okay. And we serve at the will of the uh board of supervisors. Alright. One final thing I want each other to ask this answer.

This what jim are you looking forward to most of the 1997? You know, we got there the entire exhibit program uh including primarily the uh the youngsters that bring their livestock to the fair for the auction and so forth. To me is is a very rewarding

experience. Something that I really had an experience before I became their manager. You come here any day to the fair. You'll see people of all ages, all different backgrounds, different interests. And we try and have something of to accommodate or interests as many different groups and

types as possible. And I would enjoy seeing different groups and some accounting, different ages, cultural backgrounds etcetera all coming down the ground at the same time and having a good time here. Thank you both gentlemen for your views and for being here with us. They're saying

what I have said to you many times before. There's something here for everyone at the Sonoma County fair. Don't go away a lot more to come. It's game show time at the fair and you want to come on down two times a day at two o'clock

and six o'clock over at the game show stage which is over by the animal barns and there you are going to be able to participate in quiz o rama family challenge survey says and it's a date and today we also have some winners from attention shoppers.

We have Karissa, Sandra and Tina and why don't you tell us what you want on attention shoppers. Karissa, I won this barbie doll for my daughter playing the build up box game and what do you do with a build up box? Well, my mom had to

stack all the presents into my arms and I had to hold him for 60 seconds without any dropping. And by doing that, you won this great barbie and wouldn't, you know, she's a shopper barbie. Hey Sandra, how about you? It looks like you want a bit

of food there And I got some tortillas from the la tortilla factory cornets, bugles and barnaby, barnaby stopwatch. I mean this is good stuff you can win. This is a lot of like Price is right you guess sometimes about how much things cost and all these

type of game shows, Tina, what do you have? You've got a lot of good stuff too. Well, I have cheese for her bugles and kool Aid for when I get. This is a lot of fun down there. I've got to say you can come down and

you can have trivia. You can win a date. Well I guess you can win a date. I didn't see anybody win a date, but did you see anybody win a date but you'll be coming back right for that part. Yeah, well listen, I think everybody should

come down, go to the game show stage and have a really good time and win lots of stuff. So come on. One of the finest, most professional jockeys in America is the gentleman sitting with us here right now. He is as good a writer as I've

ever seen and I've seen quite a few of the good ones, but he has set records and he's done things that northern jockeys ever done and I'm gonna find out about him in just a moment. Our guest is Russell Bass. He's the perennial champion jockey at

the northern California tracks and it's a real pleasure to have you. And this man, I want to say what I think is so darn cooperative. He was in the middle of doing something this morning. Was built a few minutes to come over and talk with Russ.

I think this is really important to the fans of snow account. In 1995 you wrote 400 winners and that was the fourth consecutive year that you had road 400 winners. That's pretty done in your Yeah. You know, I mean, it's unusual to be able to stay

healthy that long to do it in this job. You get squished fairly often. And it was just unusual that I've I've been healthy for that long period of time. Russell. I understand you won the Eclipse Award. Yeah, in 95, they gave me a special eclipse for

being the first rider to ever have won 404 years in a row, 400 races, four years in a row. You save your well for just a minute. Ladies and gentlemen, the top that Russell in 1996, road about 430 more Winners, which means that he is the

only jockey in the history of American Turf to have written more than 400 winners five years in a row. Now, that's 2000 winners for us. And that's just totally un amazing and unheard of. And I said to these folks, so I don't think it's going to

be broken? Certainly in my lifetime. Go ahead. I wanted to ask for us, what are your strength? And do you have any weaknesses? Well, I think my strength probably my main strength is probably that I don't seem to have any real serious weaknesses. I'm not sure

that I do everything better than everybody, but I can do everything as well as anybody. And you know, I mean, the horses just seem to run for me. Probably my main strength is I've got a good agent against me on real good horses and you know,

you ride the horses that I've been riding, you're gonna win a lot of races right now. You're in your mid thirties and certainly at the top of your profession, most assuredly in northern California. Is there a timetable? How long do you plan to ride? Well, I

really enjoy riding and I just plan on riding as long as I enjoy it, and as long as I'm still doing it, well, you know, I'm sure there will come a point where where I may not be doing the job that I think I should be

doing and that's that's when it will be time for me to hang up. Can you tell me about your family? Yes, I've got a wife tammy that I've been married to for 18 years. We've got a daughter trinity who is 17. She'll be a senior in

high school this year. Uh Second daughter Brandi, she's 15, just learning to drive now. And my third daughter cassie? She's 12? They're all in the rodeo. They write the barrels and poles in the goat tan and everything right back. That's where we'll be tomorrow. And then

my son's seven, he's gable and he's not quite into the rodeo yet, but he's starting to ride horses and stuff. Sounds like they're following the family tradition of horses. Yeah, maybe a little different than the horses I'm used to riding, but they're still into horses that

you've written here at santa rosa for many years. Do you feel this is a pretty good track. I love everybody loves santa rosa. Is that right? Yeah. You know, I mean it's just like, it's kind of like the del mar of northern California, you know, it's,

it's relaxing and racing is good. The facilities here are good. Everybody just enjoys coming up here. What would you tell any young kid that might be watching out now, that is small and athletic and would like to be talking. What bit of advice would you give

them? What would you tell them to do, how to go about it? Well, I would say probably start from the ground up like I did. I cleaned a lot of stalls and brushed a lot of horses and picked a lot of feet and stuff before before

I ever got on the horse's back, you know, and it's important I think for riders to learn the animals first before they get on them and just go to whooping away. Ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to what I continue to even to his embarrassment at

times is one of the finest I've ever known. Not only that one of the most property and we wish him all the success in the world. 6000 winners coming up pretty soon. Huh? Yeah, I hope so too. Ladies and gentlemen and I have been visiting with

championship now more unfair in just a moment and now the 1997 Sonoma County Fair program is winding down first. I want to thank my co hostess is lisa alexander, Noriko and Alison Sanford for doing an absolutely marvelous job. I also want to thank the crew of

cable one. They're a group of real professionals done a great job of photographing everything out there so you can enjoy it. You know, I had the pleasure of attending the first of the modern day fares back in 1936 was my late father. You realized that 61

years ago, the only ones I missed were the three years I was in the armed services. The Sonoma County Fair has a special place in my heart and every year my fondness for it grows because I love the festive atmosphere there. I like to see the

kids having fun, the young adults, the adults, the seniors coming out here and always seeming to have the time of their lives. It's truly a place where there's something for everyone. No matter what your preference for entertainment or enjoyment. It's a very, very special place for

a very, very special people like you and me now. I'm out here having a wonderful time with the fair. I sincerely hope you've enjoyed our show and that you will come out enjoy this 1997 edition of the fair to its wonderful. You'll be glad you did

and I'll be looking for you. Bye bye for now, kelly. What did you tell me a while ago you liked about the fair? Really petting the animals in the present? Okay. Taylor. What do you like about the fair Bears wheel and all the rights that we've

gone to? What do you see that you like most so far this year? Well, you're giving away a lot of really neat stuff. I like the rides and I like the pictures that we took. What do you like most about it? Yeah.