Dubois County 4-H Fair decision hard but necessary

Like many things in 2020, the Dubois County 4-H Fair will be considerably altered to accommodate the coronavirus.

The Dubois County 4-H Council made the decision to hold the fair virtually rather than move forward with the week-long event at the fairgrounds. The decision came as the organizers face the uncertainty of whether Indiana will reach the fifth phase of reopening the state or not. Regardless, social distancing guidelines would still be in place even if the state is able to meet its goal of reopening things back to nearly normal by July 4 — ten days before the fair is set to begin.

Besides the difficulty of hosting the 850 Dubois County 4-H participants, multitudes of volunteers as well as the thousands of visitors (many in the most at-risk age groups) while maintaining social distancing guidelines, a list of requirements handed down from Purdue would also have to be met to hold a fair.

Granted the Dubois County fairgrounds likely has enough space to maintain those social distancing guidelines. But the added guidelines would require all participants and volunteers to wear masks (in 90-plus degree Indiana heat), volunteers and organizers would have to incorporate a sanitization program for all surfaces, and every visitor to the fair would have to have their temperature taken as they entered the grounds as well as provide their names and contact information to organizers.

“Monitoring everyone that comes in and out of the fairgrounds would take a lot of people,” said Lisa Wilson, Purdue Extension Educator, 4-H Youth Development, adding that all of the extra requirements would take many more volunteers to accomplish.

A normal fair utilizes 165 volunteers to operate. “This would have taken a much larger number of volunteers,” Wilson said.

Plus, many of those volunteers are scheduling time off from work during fair week so they can be there to help make it a successful event. And many volunteers fall into those age brackets that have a higher risk in regards to Covid-19 whether because of underlying health conditions or their ages.

“That takes our volunteer base down plus we had employers telling some people that if they are out here (for the fair) they will need to take an additional 14 days off at home to make sure they didn’t catching anything while they were here,” Wilson said.

Those extra safeguards would also cost the Dubois County 4-H Fair a substantial amount of money. For the organization which is largely funded through donors, it would have been an overwhelming financial investment.

“That is a huge financial investment for our 4-H program to acquire all of the equipment and supplies that it would take to sanitize everything only to find out that maybe we don’t get to Stage 5 during fair week and have to cancel anyways,” Wilson said. “There’s no guarantee we are going to be in Stage 5.”

Stage 5 in the state’s plan for reopening would allow gatherings over 250 people.

Although the fair is weeks away, an event of this magnitude — Dubois County’s fair is one of the largest in Southern Indiana — takes months to plan. In just a short time, packets outlining the schedules for showings, contests, and activities would be going out the media as planning for the fair moves fulling into preparation.

“When it came down to it at the end, even if we could make all of this happen and we could find the extra volunteers and could spend all the extra money on sanitation and masks, our fair wouldn’t look like what a fair usually looks like,” Wilson said. “Since animals wouldn’t be able to stay overnight, it would just be kids coming in with maybe a parent or two to help them show, and then they would go home.”

Wilson acknowledged that at this time some other counties have decided to hold a fair. She said some of the factors that went into their decisions included having a fairground that is surrounded by a fence making it easier for organizers to track and monitor entries.

She also pointed out that the size of the program impacts the size of the fair. “If you have a small number involved in your program, then it might be easier for you to implement some of these things (safeguards),” Wilson said.

Again, with 850 4-Hers, Dubois County has one of the largest programs in Southern Indiana.

Most of the leaders and volunteers are in support of the decision, Wilson said.

Wilson said she wasn’t sure how the fair would look this year as it is moved online. The preliminary plan is for exhibits to be available by video, photographs, and online document submission. Details on project submission and logistics of the virtual fair will be coming soon and will be available at 4Honline as well as the Dubois County Purdue Extention social media channels.

Wilson said she understood how this decision was hard on the seniors in the program. “It’s really unfortunate,” she said. “I am really hoping that our community can get behind our 4-Hers and celebrate them in this virtual way. Hopefully, we can make it a positive experience for them.”

The virtual fair will be held during the normal fair week, July 13-17.