Cheerleaders staff scone booth, while deep-fried watermelon is offered at another
BLACKFOOT, Idaho (KIFI)—At the Eastern Idaho State Fair, there are many booths and vendors, but on Monday, one food booth was mostly run by cheerleaders.
The Scone Nuggets booth is a joint effort between Firth and Shelley High School cheerleaders. Proceeds from the scone nugget sales fund travel, tournaments, and uniforms for the two schools.
Booth manager Tonya Jolley says she’s overseen this fundraiser for about 20 years. She says working a fair booth takes long hours and hard work, but the students do it with plenty of pep.
“There is no downtime. There’s very little downtime. At least Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we’re going almost non-stop,” Jolley said. “My morning crew will come in and they’ll help get everything cleaned and ready and organized, and then we open around 9:15, and we just go until 10:30, 11:00 at night.”
On Monday, 56 students were helping run the booth all day. Proceeds from the scone nugget sales fund travel, tournaments, and uniforms for the two schools.
Fairs seem to be where America’s top deep fry scientists hope to peddle the craziest things they can oil and batter.
The most unusual thing you can encounter is the fried watermelon. Steven Porter, who also sells pig wings, invented it. He started by deep-frying cinnamon rolls at the fair over a decade ago.
Then he saw fried watermelon on a TV show and decided to pivot. It’s been on offer for two years now, and he says sales have been steady, though maybe not spectacular.
He says it’s important to offer both familiarity and new experiences.
“Everybody gets hungry, and sometimes they just need something with some sustenance,” said Porter. “But there are those people that are looking for an adventure and we try to provide that on a regular basis. We try to offer both. The pig wings that we offer have the sustenance, and they’re an item that people will come back for over and over and over again. But we like to do fun things and experiment and the fair is supposed to be fun, so have some fun foods, too.”
Porter said the deep-fried watermelon may not return next year, but he’s planning to offer a different deep-fried fruit instead.
