Fair-Weather Families : Opening: Thousands arrive early to see the winning exhibits, hop on 25-cent rides and sample the carnival food as the 12-day event begins.

A few minutes after the gates opened Wednesday on the first day of the Ventura County Fair, 7-year-old Chris Dunham ignored the merry-go-round and led his father, Jeff, and his mother, Kelly, to a face-painting booth.

“I want the dragon,” Chris said, pointing to a fierce-looking beast on the display board.

The artist, Kazem (K.C.) Sangabi, painted a dragon on one of Chris’ cheeks and a feather on the other. Then, working quickly, Sangabi decorated Jeff with a scorpion and Kelly with a flamingo.

It cost the Dunhams, who live in Ventura, $9 for their nontoxic paint jobs, but they’d saved $2 by visiting the fair on Family Day, when children with their parents were admitted free.

Indeed, family groups dominated the early crowds that made their way through the 62 acres of exhibits and carnival rides at the County Fairgrounds in Ventura.

Henrietta Tanner and her husband, Valentine Mejia, walked to the fairgrounds from their home on Simpson Street with Tanner’s grandchildren, Leah Lozano and Rebecca Del Leon, both 3.

“The kiddie rides were very nice this year, and the price was right,” said Tanner, noting that carnival rides cost only a quarter until 1 p.m. Wednesday--a bargain that was being offered again today.

Tanner and Mejia have been visiting the County Fair every year. “Let’s face it. It’s the biggest thing that ever happens in Ventura,” Tanner said.

Years ago, she added, she met a young man named Leland Tanner on the midway. He became her first husband. She married Mejia, who grew up in Oxnard, after Leland died in 1986.

To Mejia, a barber at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Port Hueneme, the biggest attraction at the fair is the chance to meet old friends. “Every year, I run into them--people from Ojai, Fillmore, Santa Barbara, everywhere,” he said.

While first-day attendance figures were not released, the line of people waiting to get into the fairgrounds before the 11 a.m. opening was encouraging, officials said.

“We had nearly 1,000 people in line. That’s definitely above average for opening day,” said Devlin Raley, senior partner of Creative Images, which handles the fair’s advertising and publicity.

The fair’s new general manager, Michael Paluszak, hopes that this year’s 12-day run exceeds last year’s attendance of 306,000, but he doesn’t expect it to surpass the record of 346,000 set in 1986.

On Wednesday, before the crowds built up, many of the visitors were exhibitors checking to see how their entries had fared in the judging.

In the Floriculture Building, 11-year-old Ian Foster of Ventura yelled, “All right!” when he found that he, his mother, Betty; his grandmother, Jackie Kelly; and his sister, Kaylyn, 4, had all won prizes for various gardening entries.

“Jackie has been entering the fair’s gardening competition for 42 years, and her parents, Elliot and Beulah Stroble, were involved before her,” said Barbara Schneider, floriculture superintendent. “In fact, 19 members of the family have won gardening prizes through the years.”

In the McBride Building, part of the Home Arts complex, Joe Betancourt Jr. and his friend, Yvette Morales, both of Oxnard, smiled proudly when they saw a second-place ribbon on the frame of a seascape painted by Betancourt.

“It’s the first competition I’ve ever entered,” said Betancourt, who has been painting for four years. “I’ll probably stick to seascapes. That’s what I enjoy painting.”

Tonight’s grandstand show features the Pointer Sisters. Tickets for the show range from $12 to $18. The Stratton and Christopher country music and comedy show is free on the Budweiser Stage.