Lauren Nichols Crowned Clark County Fair Queen

Lauren Nichols, Clark County Fair Queen 2014
More from the Frogtown Noose Son here

Annual County Fair Rants #1With the Clark County Fair starting up July 19, the local paper, The Springfield News Sun is starting in on it's positive press campaign in the birhplace of the 4H. Today, they brought up Fair Food

Springfield resident Cathy Delk enjoys the animal shows and a few other things, too.
"Love the 4-H kids showing their animals," she said. "Love all the food served by the FFA groups and the Clark County Producers. Fair food in the midway is fun stuff, but the local stuff is the best!"

"But Quimbob, you're a fat slob who probably lives on coneys, cotton candy, taffy, caramel apples, those crispy waffle things with powdered sugar on 'em, cones of ice saturated with brightly colored artificial flavoring, root beer floats & such. What's the big deal?"
Well, while the Fishwarp writers are looking up synonyms for 'hot', 'boring' & 'old' and the executive staff is in the Fishwarp basement sacrificing pigeons in obscene rituals meant to induce some kind of violent sensation at the Hamilton County Fair - they are not alone in their disdain for the local fair. And I'm not even talking about the elitist Hamilton County 4H. No, out of the 49 bazillion restaurants in Cincinnati & Hamilton County - a fleet of food trucks that would make a US mechanized infantry division flinch - out of all the foodies & pop up kitchens in town - with one of the largest grocery chains in the world headquartered in Cincinnati - NONE of 'em go to the fair. Cincinnati, fuckin' Chilitown USA and you can't get a coney at the fair. Pizza from Pizza Hut?
Here's the straight dope Hamilton County food vendors - go to the fair, you will have a captive audience and no competition.

Waughtel Hopper Named Deputy of the Year

Clark County Deputy Suzanne Waughtel Hopper was named Clark County Deputy of the year 11/10/11. Waughtel Hopper, 40 & mother of 2, was senselessly murdered by Michael Ferryman a fuck up in Enon Beach Trailer Park 1/1/11. Another officer was wounded and the gunman was killed.

Noose Son article here

What happened here

Annual County Fair Ranting

2010 Clark Co. Fair Queen Amanda Haddix
Barely 2 days in a and the Clark County paper of record has two optimistic articles on their county fair and 52 80 98 133 282 photos.
This year the Hamilton County 4H has expressed their contempt, fear and loathing of the city of Cincinnati and boycotted the Hamilton County fair and held their own at an amusement park in western Hamilton County. The Fishwrap has 2 glowing articles & 1 picture about the 4H fair but no followup deeming it a success (other than a headline) or, as many commenters say, an abject failure - basically a club event. 4H hasn't been crowing about their fair on their website of FaceBook page. From the Fishwrap article, there's no evidence they even sent a reporter.
The Hamilton County Fair intends to go on without the 4H. There is no doubt the absence of the 4H will impact attendance negatively
I am numb to Liberal accusations of racism but the language the 4H, Hamilton County Extension Director , Tonya Horvath, and County Commissioner Greg Hartmann use in describing the city environs most certainly deserves the label. I never witnessed the hatred of the county seat from suburban and rural residents in Clark County like I have in Hamilton County. Add in the contempt from the local paper and their glee at fanning the flames of divisiveness… Perhaps the Fishwrap should change it's name to The Area Around Cincinnati Enquirer.
If a goal of 4H is to develop good citizens - running away & hiding isn't a good lesson.

Hamilton County Fair August 9-13
Clark County Fair July 22-29

No More Fords in Clark County !

There was a time when car dealerships were in cities & preferred being on bus lines. Now they don't care if you have to ride your mule 100 miles.
Seriously tho, who needs 'em when you have a place like Mershon's? They can always fix you up with a Mustang anyway.
Noose Son story here.

2009 Clark County Fair Queen Candidates

Clark County Fair Queen contestants released. Well, their names. It's not like they were imprisoned or held captive by the County Commisioners or anything.
Or were they ?
Once again no zombie women were nominated. Clark County's stubborn prejudice against Nosferatu is still firmly in place.

Noose Son story here

Resistance is Futile

photograph by William Fischer Jr
Springfield's Healthy City Investments has purchased the Clark County Memorial Hall.
The building, erected in 1915, was purchased for $400 thousand. Restoration is estimated at $12-15 million. Since such costs are prohibitive they are planning on demolishing the building, saving the facade and incorporating it into a new building. They might want to turn it around to face north towards the new hospital.
The Memorial Hall was home to The Springfield Symphony Orchestra for many years, hosted pop concerts, and small conventions. Most of these functions are handled at the Clark State Performing Arts Center, nowadays.

For more of William Fischer's pictures of the building go to HMdb.org

Noose Son story here.

Keeping Up With Old Friends
Keeping up with your old friends from the Champion City just got a little easier with the addition of online radio and incident reports at the Clark County Sheriff's website.
The site, a FrontPage job, complete with frames, scrolling text and giant buttons has a host of information on it as well as videos of Knight Blaze, a band made up of Montgomery County law enforcement officers.
I guess I shouldn't be too hard on their site design, of course, since Ohio counties aren't exactly rolling in cash these days and the fact that they are adding functionality as they can is pretty cool.
When they can get pictures of jail inmates online we can see what our old pals are looking like nowadays.

While most of SW Ohio goes blue, Clark County gets redder.
Democrats are at a loss to explain (surprise) & cite, possibly, independents. That is kinda weird, since the Dems were the ones "Getting Out The Vote" and the Republicans spent all their time "Consolidating The Base" (whatever that is in the splintered party).
Republicans appeared similarly clueless (more surprises) as to the results, citing the great job Republicans have done over the last eight years having influenced the outcome.
Final unofficial results for the county were 31,821 McCain and 29,122 Obama.

Noose Son story here.

More on the Clark County Fair

Hannah Shouvlin guides her alpaca, Portobella and Swiss, over toys as part of the public relations course on Monday, July 21, at the 2008 Clark County Fair.


Emily Donaldson is crowned the 2008 Clark County Fair Queen by last year's queen, Chelsea Stridsberg, Sunday at the conclussion of the contest.


Winners in the "Best Cookie in the County" contest.


James Davenport competes in the Junior Fair Tractor Driving Contest at the Clark County Fair Saturday, June 19, 2008.


Beth McCrite (left) helps Alex Davis and Olivia Evans wash chickens.

more pics here.

FAIR !

It's hot. Crops are coming in but it's not harvest crunch time. Must be time for a fair.
As county fairs go, Springfield's Clark County Fair has long had a great reputation. No doubt, being the birthplace of the 4H Club and corporate sponsorship from the International Harvester company helped (even tho the local division IH was not involved in the agricultural side of the business). Dunno what role in sponsorship Navistar plays.
2007 brought 91,000 visitors to the Clark County Fair which is generally ranked as the second largest fair (behind the Ohio State fair) in the state.
The fair is easily accessible from the highway at 4401 S. Charleston Pike.
Dunno if they still run the (un-air-conditioned) buses from downtown and I am sure the hole in the fence over by the horse barns has been fixed, so I can't recommend that avenue for sneaking in anymore. The trek across the fields in the dark was fraught with surprises, anyway. :-)