Howard County 4-H Fair Returns

By ERIN LARISON and HEIDI PRUITT

The Kokomo Post Staff

Photo | Canva

The Howard County 4-H Fair returns to Greentown this week, bringing with it the classic 4-H animal shows and exhibits, the live music, the whirl-you-silly rides, the echoing crunch of the demolition derby — with and a few new surprises.

All of it – plus a lemon shake up or two – can be yours at the Greentown Fairgrounds from July 11-16. According to concession manager Jay Freeman, organizers expect between 125,000 and 150,000 people to flood the 123-acre grounds on Howard County’s eastern side next week, celebrating entertainment, agriculture and community. 

“I just love that we have a place for people who don’t see each other very often and once a year they come to the fair,” Freeman said. “They get to meet and greet and eat and have a good social time together.”

For Freeman, the fair is certainly about the fun, the excitement and definitely the food. That might makes sense, as Freeman, who has served in nearly every position imaginable at the fair, but now finds a home organizing the food and entertainment. He is joined by an army of volunteers to make the weeklong fair possible. 

“We have lots of different varieties of foods and concessions,” said Freeman. “ We have one of the best ride and amusement companies that the country has. It’s the same one that does the Florida State Fair and the Indiana State Fair… They are just great.”

Fan favorites Granpa Cratchet, Cook and Belle, and Phil Dirt & the Doers will return, but new to the fair this year will be experiences like the Butterfly Encounter, where spectators get up close and personal with real butterflies. Each visitor will receive a little bar of butterfly nectar, Freeman said, encouraging butterflies to land. 

“The butterflies will fly right out and land on their nectar bar, and they can be up close with them,” Freeman said. 

Also new this year is the Furtastic K9 Show and the Pork Chop Revue, a trained pig and hog show featured on “America’s Got Talent.” The Pioneer Village will be home to waltzing, jumping and singing swine all week long. 

But of course Pioneer Village certainly isn’t the only place to see swine this week. 

Josh Winrotte, 4-H youth development educator for Howard County and Area Eight director, said there is so much to see and experience this year, from live animals to clothing and baking projects and more. 

For Winrotte, the concept of 4-H speaks to an opportunity for children to learn in a way that fits them specifically. But while most people see 4-H during two weeks at the fair, the learning happens all year. 

“So often, [education] is prescriptive,” he said, on a brief pause in a day of project judging Wednesday. “With 4-H, that allows them the freedom to say ‘I like this,’ or ‘I want to try this,’ or ‘I want to do this.’”

And try things, they do. This year’s fair will feature more than 1,500 static projects plus live animal shows from more than 550 children from kindergarten to 12th grade throughout the county – in addition to thousands more spectating. 

After last year’s slightly modified programming – the animals did not remain in the barn after showing – this year represents a return to the full 4-H fair experience. 

“For a lot of people who have never done anything other than eat a Chicken McNugget, to walk by and see a chicken or a duck?” Winrotte said. “That’s pretty neat.”

But the animal shows, he said, are about much more than a few laps around a barn during a humid week in July. Projects like those teach children how to feed and equip animals and how to make them feel safe. Building projects, he said, are an opportunity to show the learning that they have done year round. 

“This is a chance for the kids to show the learning that they have done for 12 months in a tangible way for the community to see those efforts,” Winrotte said. 

And with temperatures predicted for the mid- to high 80s, fairgoers may be excited to hear another bit of exciting news: more air conditioning.

A Lions Club member who chose to remain anonymous donated an air conditioning system to allow both exhibit buildings, plus the tennis center, to be a little cooler during the often scorching fair heat. 

For a full list of show times and dates, click here.