PITTSTON — In the hours leading up to the opening of the Pittston Fair at 8 a.m. Thursday, volunteers are wrapping up the final details.
“Right now, we’re finishing the horse ring,” Kim Alley, secretary of the fair and member of the Pittston Fair’s board of directors, said Tuesday. “It needs some repair to the fencing.”
Beyond that, some odds and ends require attention in the Exhibit Hall, and the signs for sanitation have to be posted.
“And we have to make sure the flowers are out and watered,” Alley said.
And then the fair, now in its 66th year, can begin. At its heart, the Pittston Fair is an agricultural event and its opening day is Agricultural Day.
“We are an ag fair, and we have people coming for the ag piece,” she said. “It’s important to our children to see it and be involved in it, and we’re trying to get a little more into it every year.”
Among the agriculture-related events scheduled throughout the course of the four-day fair are the steer, horse and oxen pulling contests and the farm horse plow contest.
Competition is not limited to the field. A baking contest is on the schedule, as is a cake decorating contest. For those seeking a different sort of challenge, there’s the women-only fry pan toss and the men-only horseshoe competition.
New this year is the “Fire and Ice” show, a Mad Science exhibition, which highlights the fun of science for children; that will be held on Sunday.
“This year, we’ll be having a Demolition Derby on Sunday,” she said. “We’ve also got a band this year. We haven’t been doing one for the last two or three years.”
Alley said after a hiatus of several years, the fair is bringing back live music with a performance by the Murky Water Band at 6 p.m. Saturday.
While the midway and the fair food are powerful attractions for children, Alley said, many look forward to the bicycle give-aways at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, when kids can enter their names for a chance at one of the 80 or so bikes that are donated every year.
The Pittston Fair is one of the Maine Association Agricultural Fairs, and one of the earliest in the cycle.
The 2018 fair season started June 30 with the Houlton Fair and continues through Oct. 7 with the Fryeburg Fair.
The gates open at 8 a.m. every day, although some events start earlier.
Admission to the Pittston Fair costs $6 for those 15 and older. Younger children are admitted free. Parking is also free.
The fairground is on Route 194, between Mast Road and South Beech Hill Road.
Jessica Lowell — 621-5632
Twitter: @JLowellKJ
Copy the Story LinkSend questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.