Fair Success Transcends Animal Attraction

The fair just isn’t what it used to be.

Before developers rolled subdivisions over the county’s orange groves, ranches and dairy farms, the Orange County Fair was an agricultural showcase, a place for local farmers to show their stuff.

But as the 106th Orange County Fair wound down Sunday, its last day, the stuff the fair used to be made of--cows, goats, horses, pigs and ponies--was very much in the minority. The fair has become, in the words of contented fair-goer Nancy Milner of Huntington Beach, “a more urban event, more commercial, more like Orange County is today.”

Which may be exactly why the fair this year was such a success. An average of about 40,000 people crowded the fairgrounds every day for the two weeks it was open, enjoying everything from carnival rides to flamenco dancing, Southern barbecue to Chinese food, and buying everything from flowers to home spas.

And for the dwindling number of people for whom the fair still means farm animals, the goats and pigs and horses were still there, though in smaller numbers than ever before. At last year’s fair, exhibitors brought more than 120 cows. This year, there were less than half that. The same went for goats. And on Sunday the pigs were nowhere to be found.

“The thing is, it just gets too expensive to keep the animals in places like Orange County, with the price of land and everything,” said Jerry Gage, 48, who, like many of the parents of children competing in the Heifer Showmanship Competition on Sunday, is not from Orange County.

“Orange County people are so naive about animals. I don’t think they know what animals are all about,” Gage said.

Well, not exactly.

Jonathan Rafferty, 15 and going into his sophomore year at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, adores animals. He was out with his heifer competing with the best of them Sunday. But Jonathan wants to be a veterinarian, not a farmer. The closest this police officer’s son has gotten to a working farm is his grandparents’ house in Nebraska.

“A lot of the kids at our school don’t like it because we have to clean up poop and stuff. They say, ‘That’s so gross, ugh,’ ” he said of the agricultural class he transferred from another local high school to be in.

“But I like animals.”

Jonathan and other youths were judged on the cleanliness and preparation of their animals, and on how they handled them in the competition.

“The thing is, even if there isn’t as much [farming] left, where are the people going to go for the . . . showing?” Gage asked. “It’s for the kids. Orange County kids have to go somewhere to learn this stuff.”

And while locals may not know animals very well, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to.

“We knew the goats would be here, and listen, there aren’t a whole lot of goats around Long Beach,” said Kathy Donahue, whose two daughters were busy petting goats and pulling at their ears Sunday morning.

Still, for most enjoying the fair’s final day, the experience was less about livestock than about being lively. Officials said the latest count Sunday night showed that 720,524 people attended the fair, compared with last year’s record of 785,944.

“I come every year. There’s always something to see, always something new,” Milner said, taking her 4-year-old granddaughter, Kyla, by the hand.

“Everyone’s here, rich people, poor people, people from all different walks of life. They all seem to migrate to the fair. They had to change the fair to appeal to all these people who live here now. Obviously it works.”

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Fair Attendance

The number of people at the fair was down from last year’s record turnout.

1998: 720,524*

*As of 9 p.m. Sunday

Source: Orange County Fair