Fair Association Begins Finalizing Plans For 2012 Show

CROCKETT - It seems hard to believe, but the 2012 Houston County Fair is less than two months away.

The Houston County Fair and Youth Livestock Association met on Wednesday evening, Feb. 8 to begin finalizing plans for the upcoming event. The meeting was called to order by Association President Scott Moore at 5:30 p.m. After the previous meetings minutes and financial reports were read and approved, the members quickly moved to solidify plans for the upcoming fair.

The first item of business that was discussed concerned fair ads. Association Secretary Beverly Moore informed the members present, “If I can get in as many as possible by March 1, then I can get them back from Lyle at Boot Heel (printers) in two weeks. In our second meeting in March, I can hand them out and deliver them.”

The next item of business concerned the accounting services the Association currently uses. Treasurer Stacy Dise informed members that Jesse Stephens’, CPA firm is currently being used but there were some concerns about fee increases due to his firm’s merger with another firm based out of Lufkin.

Dise said, “I talk to them every other day and they have not said anything about fees going up. What I was told is that it is business as usual. They are in the process of revamping their system and putting everything on the system in Lufkin. What I was told is that there would be no increase right now.”

Secretary Moore brought up a concern regarding the queen and princess contestants for this year’s fair. She said the lady who handled this part of the show was unable to take care of it this year and another lady who volunteered her services was also unable to help out.

“Right about now is when we would actually be getting entries out,” she said.

The possibility of dropping the queen and princess contest was mentioned and met with strong resistance.

Rhonda Flasowski, the mother of last year’s queen, said “I know that last year, my daughter truly enjoyed it. It was a (big) thing to her. She thought it was cool.”

Dise also said, “I had a mom tell me last night that she had a daughter who thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted to know if she could run again.”

It was decided to continue with the queen and princess contests and Moore said she would e-mail the applications to the various FFA instructors and 4H leaders.

Next on the agenda was a discussion about the caps that would be sold at the fair. In previous meetings, it had been mentioned that the members would like to see changes made to previous years’ headwear. Laurel Larue presented several different options to the members. The idea of providing a visor for the ladies in attendance was also discussed. After much discussion it was decided to go with a relaxed, unstructured style of cap in an olive color. The Association also decided to go with a red visor for ladies. Both the cap and the visor will be embroidered with the logo for the Houston County Fair.

Another item for discussion concerned the buyers’ dinner. Several ideas were floated regarding the menu for the meal. After ruling several items out because of prep time or cost, it was decided to go with a menu of hamburgers, with all the trimmings, French fries and onion rings, a cobbler for dessert and tea, water or lemonade to drink.

The agenda item discussed was the dedication of the fair. Several names were mentioned in prior meetings but because of the risk of offending someone, it was decided not to dedicate it to an individual. It was decided the dedication would be to Houston County as part of the upcoming 175th anniversary celebration of the county. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:40 p.m.

Will Johnson may be reached via e-mail at wjohnson@messenger-news.com