Madison County Fair kicks off Wednesday

MADISON COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI) - It's summer time, and that means its county fair season. Wednesday brought the start to the Madison County Fair for the year.

The fair is open 9 a.m. - 10 p.m. every day until its end Saturday, August 20.

This year, the county has pulled out all the stops and provided a big stage for this year's big fair.

Patty Poulsen is the administrator of the county fairgrounds located near Rexburg's nature park.

She says this year, "we have more bounce houses this year. We have like a foam party waterfall that is free. We have a new kids zone. Kids can come all day long and enjoy all the carnival games in their we have mining for gold this year. We're doing a ping pong drop at 2:00 for all the kids. They can win over $4,000 in prizes. And we have stage shows starting later on today where we have dangerous feats of comedy. They do like juggling chainsaws, blowing fire and we have a hypnotist coming later as well."

Poulsen says this year not only has the fair itself grown larger, but the attendance for the fair is growing as well.

"Well, normally Wednesday and Thursday is our slower day, but we have been surprised. People were here at 9:00 this morning ready to come in, and they were here before our vendors were open this morning. So it's looking like it is going to be just off the hook best forever."

She says the county's 4-H program has an integral part of the fair.

"They started months ago with the baby animal, raising it, getting it to wait every month they have to weigh in. All their animals are on display. They're all competing against each other for the big prizes and ribbons and buckles. So that is another really fun thing to come and see all the animals and ask the kids questions about how they raise them."

A family from Australia was visiting the fair. They said the fair here is similar to fairs in Australia but has many differences from the ones back home.

"You know, like we love the patriotism that Americans seem to have and special feeling. Idaho, you know, there's a lot of like things with flags, American flags in it and Pledge of Allegiance, which is it is fun to see because we don't tend to have so much of that," Annie said.

They say with all of the American patriotism at the fair there are some things they hope to see including a rodeo.

"We saw some tacos and things over there and the people were speaking Spanish, so we're kind of keen to try that because, you know, that'll be as we say in Australia, fair dinkum, which means it'll be authentic."

Annie and her husband Aidan are also interested in the agricultural aspects of the fair.

"I did want a little bit more about, you know, the agriculture program here and how they integrated that into the schooling and the classroom. That that's a program. I think that because I worked in the agriculture sector in in Western Australia and so that's something that they're talking about doing is trying to reeducate children in agriculture, how important farmers are to the community and that kind of thing," Aidan said.

The fair will run until 10 p.m. Saturday and has lots to offer for entertainment with some stage shows every day. It costs $2 to attend.