Annual Visit to Fair Always Brings Out Animal Instincts

Remember the excitement in “Camelot” when the local heroes were vying for the right to escort Guinevere to the fair? Remember how eager Belle’s father was to take his latest invention to the county fair in “Beauty and the Beast”? And, of course, who can forget the intensity of the pickles judging in the movie “State Fair” (my favorite scene).

Americans love a fair. In Orange County, we’ve been putting one on for 104 years, and it seems to get bigger each time. Fairs are special to me because I grew up in small-town Indiana, where the county fair was the social event of the summer. Not having a date for the county fair was almost as bad as going stag to the prom.

I think my real appreciation for the fair, though, came from working as a summer intern at small daily newspapers in college. It was my first chance to spend time with pig farmers and goat keepers and young 4-H Club members dedicated to carrying on the same family values as their parents and their grandparents.

I thought of those days in Indiana on Friday when I interviewed Stacy Stowers, 22, of Chino, as she kept an eye on her 12 short-horns in the cow barn at the Orange County Fair. She talked a wonderful language I barely understood:

“That beef cow down on the end has a real good chance at taking champion because she’s carrying a calf right now, so she’s showing a real good udder. Betsy down on this end is probably our best shot. She’s got a really strong topline, and she’s got terrific legs.”

Which shows how little I know about cows. Betsy looked a little bowlegged to me. She also looked like she could care less about all the schoolchildren trotting through to gaze at her and her co-showstoppers. But Stowers insists that cows are not as lazy as they appear at the fair.

“Betsy’s got a tremendous amount of personality,” Stowers says. So has Jubilee, she adds. That’s her dairy cow that just took junior super champion at the San Diego County Fair.

Stowers and her partner, veterinarian Bob Petty, show at more than half a dozen fairs each year. Most of the money they make simply gets plowed back into the feeding and caring of the animals.

Then why do it? “Because I enjoy it,” Stowers says. “I just love being at the fair, and answering questions that little kids have.” (Most asked question: Do these cows bite? No.)

Stowers was raised by her mother, Stephane Stanwood, who loves horses. On their small 5-acre spread, they’ve raised horses, cows, sheep, pigs and a few dogs. Stowers is a dog groomer by trade.

As she and I talked, a large group of children came through. One did ask if they bite, but several asked if they could milk them. Sorry, not these, Stowers told them. If you’re at the county fair this week, Stowers will be in the cow barn, listening to country music on her stereo. Stop by and chat with her. And check out Betsy’s legs. See if you think they’re any match for Betty Grable.

Showing It Off: Jill Lloyd is probably the only person around who knows everything there is to know about the Orange County Fair. This is her 22nd year there. She started off showing livestock as a 4-H member, then later was an intern in its public relations department. She continued in publicity after that, and for the past 10 years Jill Lloyd and Associates has been doing the fair’s public relations. I asked her why people seem to love fairs so much.

“Because there’s no other place like it,” she says. “You have places like Disneyland for the amusements, but this is the only time you get to see everything--the livestock, the food judging, the people-watching. The fair brings out traditional down-home values, and most of us love that.”

Postponing Nature: That move by the Orange County Natural History Museum into its permanent quarters has been delayed a little. It was scheduled to move into Suites 101 and 102 at the Franciscan Plaza in San Juan Capistrano in early July. But the move got delayed because the previous tenant didn’t have its departure quite wrapped up.

Museum officials say it should be ready in just a few weeks. In the meantime, you can catch the museum’s fossil preparation display at the Orange County Fair. Patty Hatfield, who is in charge, has two large tables set up for it.

Fair Game: The fair has been around almost as long as the county itself. One of the first things officials did after the county was formed in 1889 was create a fair corporation. The fair was set up in Santa Ana, Huntington Beach and Anaheim before moving to its permanent site in Costa Mesa in 1949. The current fairgrounds, by the way, was once the site of the Santa Ana Army Air Base. Orange County was big in the Army business during World War II.

Wrap-Up: You’ll miss the best of what this year’s fair has to offer if you skip the pig barn. Jabberwocky and Dragonheart are two 11-week-old pot bellies who will steal your heart. They belong to Enchanted Pig Ranch co-owner Laura Daugherty of Riverside. Dragonheart is the most pot-bellied of all in the barn. “That’s because she eats so much,” says Daugherty.

This is the part that’s hard for me to swallow: These pot-bellies are house pets. Daugherty has two full-grown ones, each the size of a coffee table, who sleep in her living room. She’s even potty-trained these critters.

Daugherty says she got hooked five years ago when a friend asked her to baby-sit a pot-belly. Says Daugherty: “I knew then I had to have one.”