GREENVILLE — For Mark and Patty Cotter, picking up trash at the Great Darke County Fair is about much more than keeping the fairgrounds clean – while picking up litter on their wedding anniversary, August 28th.
It is a homecoming.
The Haslett, Michigan, couple is once again spending fair week walking the grounds, picking up litter and doing their part to make the fair a better place for everyone who passes through the gates.
“We’re sort of feeling like we’re back home,” Mark Cotter said.
The Cotters have been doing the job since 2004, but Mark’s connection to the fair reaches much further back. He grew up in nearby Randolph County, Indiana, and remembers coming to the Darke County Fair as a child.
“I grew up in Randolph County, Indiana, so coming to the fair as a child, it just gets into you,” Cotter said.
More than two decades of cleaning the grounds have also given him an opportunity to discover just how many other people share that attachment.
“It is a vacation because I love coming down here,” said Patty. “It’s a vacation because it’s so different than what we do at home. We both volunteer a lot, so the volunteering just kind of fits right in. We’ve met so many wonderful people, and it’s like we have a set of fair friends we love to catch up with every year. I’m comfortable even being by myself wandering around, so I’ve embraced it for 34 years.”
“I meet so many people when I’m out picking up trash that have a similar feeling about the fair,” Mark added. “So that’s always interesting.”
Mark said the work often feels more like public relations than trash collection because of the conversations that begin while he makes his way around the grounds.
“I kind of feel like I’m more in public relations than trash,” he said. “There are some great people that you meet sitting on the bench at the gazebo, for example, and they’re just happy to be here. They strike up a conversation, very friendly, and I enjoy that.”
Over the years, the Cotters even found a way to turn money discovered while picking up litter into a charitable contribution.
Money he finds on the fairgrounds has generally been donated to a cancer association. The cause has special meaning to Cotter, who is a cancer survivor.
But one thing has changed considerably over the years: People simply do not carry as much cash.
“What’s changed is that money’s not on the ground anymore,” Mark said. “When you think about the use of debit cards, credit cards, I’m just not finding coins or bills on the ground.”
Several days into this year’s fair, Mark said he had yet to find any money.
Fairgoers have occasionally learned about his tradition and simply dropped money into his bucket for the cause.
“They have,” Mark said. “They’ve missed me so far this year. We still welcome that.”
Cotter said choosing a cancer organization to benefit from the money seemed natural because of his own experience with the disease.
“The organization we chose, because I’m a cancer survivor, was partly behind that,” he said. “It just made sense to do that.”
Cotter also has a connection to the military. A U.S. Army veteran, he served from 1968 to 1971, including a deployment to Germany.
“As I take time to look around, I can see U.S. Army, military veterans,” Cotter said. “I was in ’68-’71. I ended up going to Germany rather than Vietnam. It just turned out that way. I was ready to go to Vietnam.”
Even while living about 10 miles outside Lansing, the Cotters maintain their connection to Darke County throughout the year.
Mark Cotter said My County Link has become part of their evening routine in Michigan and allows them to follow local news, sports and community events until it is time to return to Greenville.
“Every night we look forward to sitting down and reading My County Link,” Mark said. “We’re home in Michigan watching ‘Jeopardy!’ or whatever, and we’ll pull you up, and we’ll go through all of it.”
Cotter said reading about people and events throughout Darke County helps the couple remain connected to the community from more than 100 miles away.
“I like the content because you’re giving us, as if we were here, good content that makes us feel like we’re part of the community,” Cotter said. “Now, when we come back, we know people. We’ve seen them on My County Link, and that’s just a great feeling.”
This year’s visit also provided the Cotters with another reason to appreciate the Greenville community.
Patty Cotter needed medical attention during their stay, resulting in a trip to the emergency department at Wayne HealthCare.
“Yesterday morning, we spent time in the emergency room at Wayne HealthCare,” Mark Cotter said. “We got great care. We have so much to be grateful for. Everybody was good to us.”
By the following day, Patty was feeling better and was back where the couple wanted to be — on the grounds of the Great Darke County Fair.
“I was treated very nicely,” Patty said of her visit to Wayne HealthCare. “They were everybody was friendly. They were very attentive. They were busy, but I was pleased with the care.”
“Now my wife feels so much better today, and she is here on the grounds of the fair,” Cotter said.
After more than two decades of picking up litter, meeting strangers who become friends and returning year after year, the Cotters’ annual trip from Michigan has become much more than a visit to a county fair.
For Mark and Patty, it is a return to a place that feels like home.
