Volunteers contribute to fairgrounds

    A group of community members has donated countless hours to improve the fairgrounds this year. One of the major projects was to put many of the overhead electrical wires underground. Many of the buildings on the southern and western portion of the fairgrounds are now supplied by electricity in the ground.

    Ace Electric did much of the electrical work in the fairgrounds. Ace Electric employee Dick Newman said he and the other employees supplied power to the new hoop building southwest of the main show ring. He said the weather has not cooperated this year as he hoped it would, but remarked, ?You have to work when you can.?

    Rodney Christner, who headed the project to build and outfit the new bathroom south of the show ring, said there were about six people working on the electrical system nearly all the time for two solid weeks.

    Dan Wittmayer, another Ace Electric employee, said they installed underground wiring to the stage, the multi-species building, the hoop building and the new bathroom. While they were at it, they installed speakers in a few of the buildings. 

    ?There is a lot less maintenance involved in an underground system than an overhead one,? said Wittmayer. ?It?s a lot cleaner looking. It?s the modern way of doing things.?

    Christner remarked that the electrical work and much of the work on the new buildings was made possible by people willing to give their time.

    ?We?re using donated labor and many, many donations from a lot of people,? said Christner. ?The Fair board members put a lot of stuff in during the evening hours. I?d say about 80 percent of the infrastructure in the ground is from volunteer work.?

    Bob Schulty of Ace Electric played a pivotal role in financing the new bathroom. Christner said that Schulty provided most of the materials in the bathroom and that he paid the labor costs incurred. Others who helped on the bathroom included Dave Mitchell, Mike Levy, Brian Eakins, Ron Armstrong, Kenny Armstrong,

Corwin Gingerich, Klint Gingerich, Josh Keeler, Jimmy Allender, Bob Fogle, Randy Steinberg and Roger Cole. Don Marie, Kevin Hora and Ed Conway also helped with the electrical installation and a few other improvements to the hog building showbarn and the horse building.

For the full story, see the July 13 edition of The Washington Evening Journal