GREENVILLE — Mother Nature may be testing the Great Darke County Fair Board, but she isn’t dampening its enthusiasm for the 170th Great Darke County Fair.
After more than 6 inches of rain soaked Greenville and the surrounding area during the past week, another round of heavy rain Sunday forced fair officials to temporarily halt one of their biggest pre-fair jobs — placing more than 900 campers and mobile homes on the grounds.
Yet with opening day less than a week away, Fair Board President Marla Werner had a simple message for exhibitors, campers and fairgoers:
The fair will be ready.
“We’re confident that we’re going to get things done,” Werner said.
The 170th Great Darke County Fair is scheduled to open Friday, with the traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony at 8 a.m. Werner said there is no question the nine-day fair will go on as planned.
“Oh yes, it is,” Werner said when asked if the fair would go on. “No doubt, because we have lots of things planned this year.”
Sunday was expected to be an important day for getting campers settled onto the grounds. Instead, another round of downpours arrived around noon, followed by more heavy rain around 4:30 p.m.
“The problem is, we’ve got so much water, and it continues to rain,” Werner said. “We got another inch this morning, so we had a plan to get quite a few in, and then when it rained, it kind of postponed those plans.”
Fair officials aren’t sitting around waiting for perfect conditions. They are continually evaluating campsites and moving campers in whenever and wherever the ground will safely support them.
“As we see the sun coming out, we’ll actually dry things up relatively quickly,” Werner said. “As we see those sites that we’re like, ‘We can get them in,’ we’re contacting them, having them come in, and we’re trying to get what we can done done.”
The biggest challenge is the wooded camping area, where shade and saturated ground slow drying considerably.
“The biggest problem is going to be the wooded area; it’s not drying out as fast, obviously,” Werner said. “But otherwise, we’re confident that we’re going to get things done.”
Under normal circumstances, Werner said more than half of the fair’s campers would have been parked by Sunday.
“We know this is a big day,” she said. “We usually have almost over half of our campers already parked by now, and we don’t. But we’re going to do extended hours when the weather’s fit and we can get them in. We’re going to be here to do that.”
Werner especially wants campers to know their reserved spaces haven’t been forgotten.
“I don’t want anybody to worry about their camp spot,” she said. “We’re going to get them in. The only ones I would have some concern about, and we’ll work with those folks, are going to be the ones in the woods.”
While the rainfall has created headaches at the fairgrounds, Werner said what Darke County is experiencing has to be kept in perspective.
Greenville sits only about 20 miles east of the Indiana state line, placing the community relatively close to areas of eastern Indiana devastated by the same general stretch of severe weather.
Wayne County, Indiana, just across the state line, experienced catastrophic flooding after some areas received up to 10 inches of rain in less than 24 hours. Cambridge City was among the hardest-hit communities, with water rescues, evacuations, road closures and a local disaster emergency declaration.
Farther west, communities including Noblesville also experienced historic flooding. The White River exceeded flood levels dating to the historic 1913 flood, while days of storms across Indiana resulted in deaths, hundreds of evacuations and widespread damage.
For Werner, those images make muddy fairgrounds and delayed camper parking seem considerably more manageable.
“We could be Connersville, Indiana,” Werner said. “We could be Cambridge City, we could be Noblesville. We could be all the places with devastating floods, so we’re going to deal with a little rain. We’re going to have a good time in spite of it.”
Twenty-one-year Fair Board member and past president Dean Neff, who spent Sunday working at the grounds, shared Werner’s outlook.
“We’ve had well over six inches of rain so far this past week,” Neff said. “It put a damper on things, yes, but at least we’re not like Indiana has had.”
Preparing a fairgrounds after days of rain requires more than sunshine. It requires experience, equipment, and people who know how to handle wet conditions.
That is particularly important in getting the horse arena ready for competition.
“We have a group of guys that come in just for the fair; they know arenas,” Werner said. “They know how to work them. They know how to get them ready. Once they’re ready, they know how to close them and open them.”
The crew also knows what to do if more rain arrives.
“When they see rain coming, they know how to close them up, and they have ways to get water out if we have to,” Werner said. “The guys do a great job.”
Werner knows from personal experience that rain and county fairs have gone together before — and young exhibitors have found a way to make the best of it.
“I have been up to ankle-high mud showing before when I was a kid,” Werner said. “We joke about the days, if anybody remembers way back, where it rained every year at the fair, and you knew it was going to rain.”
Those memories are part of why making sure this year’s fair happens is so important.
“I can remember being hip high in water, and you just made it happen,” Werner said. “And we showed anyway, and we got it done. We had fun doing it.”
For Werner and the board, the young people who have spent months preparing livestock, projects and exhibits remain at the heart of the fair.
Rain can make preparations more difficult. It doesn’t erase all of that work.
Fair officials also are asking the public for patience as the grounds are transformed from a rain-soaked work site into a fairgrounds ready to welcome thousands of visitors.
There are campers to park, food vendors to position, rides to assemble and inspect, and countless other tasks to complete before Friday morning.
That is why visitors may occasionally find gates closed during preparations.
“If you see the gates closed, we apologize,” Werner said. “We know people want to come in and drive through and look around, but we just have to really keep those areas open and free so they can do their job, so that we can get everything up, inspected, safe, and open Friday for everybody.”
Despite the week’s weather, Werner said the outlook heading toward opening day is encouraging.
“We keep watching the weather, and actually, the weather looks favorable right now,” she said. “We always get a shower or two each year, but the temperatures look pleasant, and it’s not calling for torrential rains. A little rain to settle the dust never hurt, but it’s looking favorable.”
What has impressed Werner as much as anything during the difficult week has been the response from campers, exhibitors, volunteers and members of the community.
Rather than complaints, she said that fair officials have been met with overwhelming patience and understanding.
“I really want to just say thank you to all of them,” Werner said. “I appreciate their patience, their kindness. They call, they text, they stop, they understand.”
That support means even more because so much of the work required to put on the Great Darke County Fair is performed by people who simply want to help.
“People have been nothing but kind, and I appreciate that because I got a lot of volunteers helping me,” Werner said. “They’re here because they want to be here to help, and I just want to make sure they’re taken good care of. I can’t ask for a greater bunch of people in the way they’ve treated us.”
Werner also is making herself available to campers who have questions about when they can move onto the grounds.
Fair officials are providing updates through the fair’s Facebook page and Messenger. Campers also may call the fair office at 937-548-5044, extension 130, to reach the camp office.
“If you have somebody you know, they’ll get a hold of me, and I’ll be more than glad to let you know when to come, what our plans are,” Werner said. “I’ll even go check your campsite and see what I think as far as how long it’s going to be.”
There remains plenty of work between Sunday’s rain and Friday morning’s ribbon cutting.
There are hundreds of campers still to place. There are muddy areas to dry. There are arenas to prepare, vendors to position, rides to assemble, and countless details to complete.
But after 170 fairs, a little — or even a lot — of rain isn’t going to stop Darke County.
The fair board’s message remains one of confidence, patience and anticipation.
Neff took a moment away from his Sunday work to offer a simple invitation.
“Everybody come to the Great Darke County Fair and have fun,” Neff said.
Werner echoed that invitation and is already looking beyond the mud and rain toward opening morning.
“Everybody, come out to the 170th fair Friday morning,” Werner said. “We have an opening ceremony at 8 a.m., and we are going to be open for the best fair ever.”
