Uncle Leo’s Is the Place for Pig Tales, Farm Fun

Leo Vanoni knows pigs. They are the stars of his show, after all.

Vanoni, better known to fairgoers as Uncle Leo, has run his barn at the Ventura County Fair for 43 years, offering kids and parents a glimpse of barnyard life.

And the barn’s main attraction has always been the batch of newborn piglets squirming close to a sow--a different one each year and sometimes as heavy as 900 pounds, with ears the size of T-bone steaks.

The 84-year-old Vanoni was baptized into the fair life with a pig predicament back in ’56.

That first sow just didn’t want to leave her cage after the fair wrapped up. Hugely fat, and prone to lashing out with a violent chomp, she could not be moved.

So Vanoni picked up a piglet and started running, and the big piggy followed. She rushed after him the way only a desperate mother would--and went charging straight into her trailer, where the gate was quickly shut, mother and child reunited.

The rest is history.

Vanoni has manned the barn since then, welcoming the blubbery sow-of-the-year and the lower-profile animals, too: the friendly donkey, the fuzzy baby goats, the proud rooster, which trumpeted regularly throughout the day Thursday.

*

And in the corner cage lay this year’s sow, a relatively svelte 500-pounder lazily sliding open an eye to cast an uninterested glance at spectators and the piglets rooting frantically for milk.

Vanoni is admittedly a fair fixture, a ruddy old-timer in dusty jeans and a green cap that says Uncle Leo. He gets “hellos” from strangers on the fair’s Main Street, and a line of visitors heads straight for Vanoni’s brown chair, stenciled with his initials.

Donna Stephens, a 40-year-old mother of seven, has volunteered at the fair for about 10 years and has become good friends with Vanoni in the process.

“He’s everyone’s uncle,” she said.

Stephens’ daughter Dallas, 6, clearly thought so. She perched on Vanoni’s lap throughout the morning, giddily sharing stories with the Ventura County native.

Born on a farm between Saticoy and Somis, Vanoni has spent his life with livestock, from the days when farmers plowed their land with mules to today’s computer-run era. He started the fair’s barnyard when it was just a tent, moved it later to a little red barn, and finally found his homestead here at Uncle Leo’s.

*

For years, he slept in the barn to protect the animals, amid the noise of squawking chickens and a rooster crowing at 4 a.m.

This much has changed: Some of his 11 grandkids have that duty now.

But Vanoni could never leave. He tried a sabbatical once, in 1973, but returned to find the barn in disarray, and he hasn’t missed it since. He had a spleen aneurysm last year--which laid him up for months--but he pulled himself through with the help of his family.

“So many people came in [to the hospital] just to see me,” he said. “I had to be here.”

Vanoni’s son Charles has taken on the day-to-day duties and expects to carry on Uncle Leo’s for years to come.

“They come right here looking for him,” Charles Vanoni said. “Everybody from old friends to 4-H kids who worked here years ago. Sometimes they have to remind him of their names, but they all remember him.”

Does that make him a county fair celebrity?

“I guess,” Uncle Leo answers, just a little bit bashful.

With wife Rita at his side--occasionally ready to jump in with a correction to his chatter--Vanoni hopes to share the farm world with a county that has become increasingly city-bound.

Savanna Lewis, 4, for instance, had never seen a pig before.

“I want to bring one home and put it in my room,” she said of the friendly piglets. “I’ll put some mud in for it.”

Though he is happy to see the fair still focused on agriculture, Vanoni knows that Ventura County is urbanizing, as open land becomes spotted with developments.

But he isn’t going anywhere--no matter how times change.

“In our days, people were more simple, not as sophisticated,” Vanoni said. “I miss it. But I blend in.”

Times staff writer Catherine K. Enders contributed to this report.