Judges Plow Through Home-Grown Entries : County fair: Volunteers begin picking winners among the 20,000 arts, crafts, food and other items submitted for event.

The three Ventura County Fair judges were trying to decide which of the wedding portraits that lay before them were worthy of awards.

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But Gordon Cory, Anita Thompson and Joey Terrill were being tough. Only two of the portraits merited ribbons, they decided. There would be no third-place winner.

They gave the blue ribbon to a softly lit portrait, taken by photographer Al Friedman of Ventura, of two children in wedding finery sitting on stairs.

The second-place red ribbon went to Thousand Oaks photographer Connie Steidl for a shot of a bride sitting on a high-backed chair, her back to the camera, in a field of yellow flowers. It was titled “Second Thoughts.”

“These other pictures are all standard wedding stuff,” said Cory, who owns a camera shop in Camarillo. “But these two capture something different.”

Scenes like this were played out throughout the day Tuesday as scores of volunteers descended on Seaside Park in Ventura to begin judging the 20,000 entries of various kinds that will become part of this year’s Ventura County Fair.

With nine days left before the start of the fair Aug. 16, the energy level was high in the cavernous halls where thousands of wood carvings, porcelain dolls, sweet jams, intricate quilts and photographs lay waiting for a decision.

The atmosphere in the Creative Living hall, which houses exhibits of foods, crafts, textiles and amateur arts, was intense but orderly, said Valerie Ulmer, one of three department heads overseeing the start of judging.

“This was our first day of judging, so it was pretty hectic,” she said. “But it went pretty smoothly.”

By week’s end, her team of judges will have looked at 700 arts and crafts pieces, inspected 928 pieces of clothing and bedding and tasted 600 jars of preserved pickles, jellies and hard-boiled eggs.

The real crush comes next week, Ulmer said, when the county’s amateur bakers arrive with thousands of cookies, brownies, cakes and pies. Although she has worked in the fair’s home arts hall for 20 years, this is her first year of being boss, she said.

“I just take it one day at a time,” Ulmer said. “There’s a lot more to do.”

Next door in the McBride Building, which houses amateur and professional photographs, Supt. Ann Losito was busy laying out the first stacks of about 2,000 entries that Cory, Thompson and Terrill must judge.

They started looking at photos at 8:30 a.m. and were still at it eight hours later. Terrill, a professional photographer from Los Angeles, said they would probably commit themselves to the same hours today and Thursday before they are done.

But they never get tired of looking at the entries, he said.

“Ann doesn’t give us similar divisions back to back, so we are constantly getting a new view,” Terrill said as he waited for Losito to lay out yet another set of photographs on a long table. “She’s the one who’s working hard.”

It was much the same in the Youth Building, where Tiffany Irving was among a dozen volunteers and fair staff members doing paperwork and judging entries. The 16-year-old Junior Fair Board member had been on her feet since 8:30 a.m. and didn’t expect to get a break until 6 p.m.

Tiffany said they would process thousands of entries submitted by children, including poetry, artwork, sewing and baking. One long folding table held nine models of the San Buenaventura Mission, the obligatory history project for scores of Ventura County students.

“Oh yes, the missions,” Tiffany said. “We get a ton of those every year.”

Although she could be spending the time hitting the beach like other teen-agers, Tiffany said she prefers to devote her August to the fair. Her mother has been involved with the fair for 20 years, and Tiffany submitted her first entry--a table setting--when she was 4 years old, she said.

“I surf in the morning,” she said. “Then I come here. I love the fair.”