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University Daily Kansan, September 13, 1982
Conall Addison, St. John, catches a rabbit while it tries to escape from the indiging table
It's fair time in Kansas
By BONAR MENNINGER Staff Reporter
Kansans from Eudora to Colby converged Saturday upon the sprawling state fair in Hutchinson to kick off a week-long festival of sports, pride, competition and just flat out good times.
Although clouds threatened rain and a hot wind blew across the acres of concrete, the opening of the 70th annual state fair was a success for old fair hands and first/last alike.
"This is the first time I've been here. Isn't that awful to say? There's so much to see and do."
*I am not sure.*
Over in the exposition building, another Kansas, this one an old hand at the fair, was pressing the flesh.
"This is the biggest event in the state," said Gov. John Carlin. "I started coming in 1950, that was the first year I showed cattle at the fair, and then since in one capacity or another," he said.
LIKE THOUANDS OF other Kansans at the
Fair Saturday, the governor was highly curious about the score in the University of Kansas/Wichita State football contest.
It seemed competition ran like a river through the fair, carrying men and children and animals
The strongest and possibly the most beautiful competitors were not women or men, but horses. Before an overflow crowd at the horse-pulling contest, 12 two-horse teams and their drivers took turns hitching to a leaden sled, to dig and pull the weight as far as they could.
All the teams begin the contest pulling more than a ton in salt blocks on the sled. After each pull, a red tractor would drag the burden back feet and 500 pounds would be added to the load.
THE TEAMS AND drivers had their own styles as they trotted out from the long line of horses, proudly doing a few broad sweeps in front of dawdle before backing and snorting up to the hitch.
The contest came down to two teams pulling well over 6,000 pounds. When the urging shouts and encele's barks had faded from the arena, they returned in full form., and his team of Belzani were the winners.
"FIRST HE LIKED them long, and then the next one he choose would be a rattle little girl."
Across in the sheep barn, two Future Farmers of America sat on a rail and contemplated losing, disgusted with a judge in the sheep contest.
"I was lucky, I reckon you'd say. The horses won it." Bronson said, after the trophy girl had kissed him and the photographers had captured the team of Bud and Charlie for all time.
In two weeks. Travlor will take his lamb to the
The crowd favorite, who drew rousing cheers every time he passed another car, was Van Gemmil, an Oklahoma originally from Zook. He lost a tire in the heat race.
Not far from the animals, stock cars exploded into life about 1 p.m., hurting around the half-mile dirt oval like suburban commuters gone mad.
kill show, where the sheep will be given up for saulther.
"WE DID THE best we could. I don't like losing but all you can do is chuckle," he said, slipping a beer after spending the afternoon going 130 moh on dirt.
For as many plate drawings, baseball throws and other competitive events as there were, there were at least as many opportunities to learn about a variety of things.
One of the most important information booths at the fair was the Kansas Wheat Commission's display in the Agricultural building, manned by David Fru, KU Class of '75.
FRY. A LANKY MAN in a white shirt and string tie, extolled the virtues of the state's number one product and condemned the poor price farmers get to produce it.
"Kansas is so important in the world, and we don't even realize it," Fry said. "If we were able to get a price that somehow reflected the cost of the country, we would have a much cheaper economy of the United States would turn around."
Fry said that Kansas produced enough wheat this past season to feed the state for 100 years.
He said he had recently toured Kansas with the god ministers of India and Bangladesh and with four others.
The problem, Fry said, is that too much wheat in storage and not available to the open market.
"WE'RE SITTING ON all this wheat and we can't use it, but there are countries in the world that can." Fry said. "The government doesn't seem to want to give these countries a loan — afraid they won't get paid back. Yet to the same country, we will turn around and loan them money so they can buy weapons from us instead of anything that can help their people."
Fry, the director of public affairs for the wheat commission, said a solution to part of the problem would be to sell more wheat to Russia. He said that at one time, the United States had 70 percent of the Russian grain market, and that it fifteen percent, 30 percent, with Kansas being the main loser.
Committed to the expulsion of liquor from the state, the booth displayed bottles of brown liquid with labels that looked like well-known brand names but actually said things such as "brain damage," "delirium tremors" and "cancer of the esophagus."
Information about another issue in Kansas was the message of the Women's Christian Tumor Association.
"I've never tried liquor, but I believe it's not good for you," said Mrs. Clyde Goodwin, a chef at the restaurant.
Commercial exhibitors display their wares in one of the exhibition buildings at the fair.
Six-year-old Desira Foster, Wichita, Takes a close look at a chicken in the poultry building of the state fair
Rustin Hamilton, Coffeyville, washes down a sheep in the sheep barn before judging begins.
A stock car roars around the grandstand track during preliminary heats.
Photos by Ben Bigler