PRESQUE ISLE—The Northern Maine Fair recently concluded its 157th annual fair. While several days' activities were hampered by rain, the Fair directors managed to make their way through and still carry most of the events. "We were worried on Tuesday that we were going to get rained out on our children's night, which was our pig scramble and fireworks," said NMF President, Kevin McCartney. "We were thinking about moving those events to Wednesday. We went back and forth as a big board does and decided we might as well go with what we have and that was the right decision because the weather did hold out for us.

The weather did hold off on Tuesday night. After the pig scramble, the United Way produced a Aroostook Idol/Northern Star talent review reunion show in front of the grandstand featuring many of their programs' past winners. "The weather did hurt us severely on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It rained badly on Monday but the threat of rain reduced the crowd on Tuesday and Wednesday. The other days have been pretty consistent with what they were last year."

McCartney is excited to report the Fair has seen an upsurge in small children this year. "This was one of the things that I really wanted to focus on. We've been working now for several years in building up programs for small children and particularly this year with educational programs.

In recent years we've done the princess/pirate parties which have been a tremendous success. The pageant last year was its first time and its reception by the public was amazing. This year it was twice as big."

Fair officials estimate nearly 2,000 kids are estimated to have gone through the display.

The Fair Association is currently looking for a small grain bin for the Little Farmers exhibit. "If anybody has an old aluminum grain bin that we could use to make a little granary for the kids to walk through next year, that is one of the things we're looking for."

The area behind the commercial exhibition building has featured various family shows in the past few years and has come to be named "Andyland" after entertainment organizer, Andy LeBlanc. "Andy started the exotic animals there; in the past, we've had elephants, tigers and chimpanzees. This year we went a little less exotic with the Frisbee dogs," explained McCartney. "Most of the dogs were taken from animal shelters and trained to do amazing stunts. We had the same size crowd, people enjoyed the dogs. In past years we've had a magician for the middle of the week. This year, the Frisbee dogs were a little less expensive than the really exotic animals so we were able to do the magician act for all nine days and I think that worked out very well."

Kevin wanted the Fair to maintain its focus as an agricultural fair. "Yes, we have a midway but we do not see ourselves as being a carnival. There are some fairs that have gone that way, with just the rides. I think ten or fifteen years ago we were going that way. But we've really been working to build the agriculture in. We're an agricultural community. Most of us don't work on the farm anymore, but we still need to remind ourselves what farms are about and where our food comes from."