Fair Wins Awards at Western Fairs
By Diane Booth Conway,
Merced County Fair Communications & Marketing Director

   The 2007 Merced County Fair was a “Gateway to Great Cheese,” plus lots more, and now it has won a big chunk of awards.
   The Merced County Fair has received 11 awards from the Western Fairs Association (WFA) annual Achievement Awards. Robin Hauck, the fair’s CEO, accepted the awards at the 85th annual Convention & Trade Show (Jan. 7-11) in San Diego.
   The Western Fairs Association is a non-profit trade association serving the fair industry throughout the Western United States and Canada.
   The 2007 Merced County Fair entries were judged among medium-sized fairs with an annual attendance of 50,000 to 150,000.
   Other fairs competing in the same category with the Merced County Fair included the Marin County Fair, the Monterey County Fair, the Madera District Fair and the Santa Cruz County Fair.
   The goal of the association’s awards program is to recognize excellence and to share innovative ideas and successful programs. “It’s our goal to honor the fair’s traditions and present a top quality event that celebrates our diverse community,” said Hauck. “It’s very gratifying to be recognized with these prestigious awards.”
   The fair received four first place awards for the following entries: Community Outreach Program, Non-Traditional Revenue Generating Program, Fairtime Logo Contest and News Photo.
   The Community Outreach entry showed the fair’s civic involvement which gave fairgoers a chance to help support County Bank’s fundraiser to provide supplies for local schools and fairgoers had the opportunity to donate blood at the BloodSource bloodmobile. Visitors to the fair also could find out about the importance of exercise and nutrition at the Golden Valley Health Center’s mobile clinic. The City of Merced rented a space in the fairgrounds’ Commerce Building where fairgoers signed a petition to help save Downtown Merced’s 1930s era post office and filled out surveys providing input on dining, entertainment, businesses and beautification in Downtown Merced.
   In the Non-Traditional Revenue Generating Program category, the fair was honored for teaming up with the City of Merced to coordinate the city’s annual Spring Cleanup with the fairgrounds E-waste drive. The new partnership provided income for the fair while saving the city the expense of loading and transporting E-waste items collected at the annual Spring Clean-up.
   The 2007 Merced County Fair’s “Gateway to Great Cheese” logo, created by Mark Keach of Atwater, was the first place winner in the Fairtime Logo Contest category. The fair also submitted a photo taken by Merced Sun-Star photographer George MacDonald, which took first prize in the News Photo category. The photo shows Diane Obrey of Merced with the quilt she made and exhibited at the fair to honor Marine Corps Cpl. Joshua Pickard of Merced, who died in Iraq in December 2006. The project, which took five months to complete, shows scenes from Pickard’s life and pieces of his uniform. Obrey made the quilt in Joshua’s memory for his mother, Terri Pickard, who was later given the quilt.
   The fair also won four second place awards for its Television Advertising, Display Newspaper Advertising series, Outdoor Advertising and a photo submitted for consideration in the WFA “Fair Dealer” magazine cover photo contest.
   The fair’s television advertising, based on the fair’s theme, “Gateway to Great Cheese,” was created and produced by George Bertaina and Tony Wright of Go Media, Merced.
   The fair’s newspaper advertising campaign is designed and produced by Jo Sullivan of ProDesign of Merced. Sullivan also designs the fair’s billboard ads, which won in the contest’s Outdoor Advertising category.
   The second place photo contest winner featured a 4-H exhibitor posing with her horse at the fair’s Horse Show. The photo was taken by Greg Hubbard, a Fresno City College photography instructor, who also is the fair photographer.
   The fair received two third place awards -- one for a display newspaper ad and one for a full color ad that appeared in DeTodo, a Spanish language magazine. Both award-winning ads were created by Sullivan.
   The fair also collected an Honorable Mention award for a “Give It Your Best Shot” photo submission, a photo of three teenage girls on a carnival ride by assistant Fair photographer Nathan Frye.
   The 117th Merced County Fair is July 15-20 and the theme is “Come Rock With The Flock.” For more information, call 722-1507 or email to Info@MercedCountyFair.com or fax at 722-3773. Visit the 2008 Merced County Fair’s award-winning web site, www.MercedCountyFair.com

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