By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Ellis County Fair is set to move forward with an in-person fair July 11 to 18.
A few events have been altered or canceled, but most events will proceed as normal, said Jill Pfannenstiel, fair board president.
4-H has canceled a few of its events, including the barbecue and the foods challenge.
"We will have hand sanitizer everywhere," she said. "We will have face masks for our volunteers if they want to wear it. We will have bottles of bleach water. We will wipe down tables with more often than we normally did."
The 4-H food stand will also close earlier each night at 8 p.m instead of 11 p.m.
Grandstand guests will be asked to voluntarily social distance.
"Our county doesn't have restrictions right now, so we are just following the county guidelines," Pfannenstiel said. "Things can change if we get closer to the time and they put more restrictions in place. We will follow whatever the guidelines are at that time."
The 4-H and open class exhibit areas will be spaced out more, she said.
COVID-19 made organizing the fair more difficult this year, Pfannenstiel said.
"A lot of things were in the air, especially on the 4-H side of things," she said, "because K-State gives them directions and they were told not to do anything in person until after July 4. We had no idea what 4-H was going to do."
No changes are in store for the animal exhibitions, but the annual 4-H Livestock Sale has been moved to 1 p.m. Saturday, July 18. The livestock purchasers meal will be at 11 a.m.
The new small-animal barn will be ready for the fair. The barn and most of the other structures at the fairgrounds received damage during a storm last August.
The Schenk and Unrein buildings still need to be reroofed, which will not be completed until after the fair. The commercial building will be used during the fair, but is also waiting on repairs.
The fair board decided rather than replace the animal barn roof, which had rotting timbers, it would replace the entire structure. Both the fair board and the 4-H raised funds to supplement what was received from insurance.
The fair will feature two nights of races at RPM Speedway at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 11, and Sunday, July 12. The 12th Annual Wheatshocker Nationals will feature URSS 305 Sprint cars plus IMCA mods, stocks, sport mods, hobby stocks and the crazy cruisers.
The KPRA Rodeo will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 14, with the theme “Tough Enough to Wear Pink Night” and Wednesday, July 15, with the theme “Patriotic Night."
Monster trucks will be featured two nights at 8 p.m each night on Friday, July 17, and Saturday, July 18, with a pit party from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
All tickets will be sold at the gate and are $5 each for anyone 6 and older.
The inflatable carnival is back at a cost of $5 per armband. The carnival will feature bounce houses, treasure dig, laser tag, obstacle courses, inflatable axe throw, alien invasion, target range and dunk tank.
The fair will still have its nightly midway concerts, which are free.
"We have a lot of food vendors signed up this year," Pfannenstiel said. "We hope a lot of people come out and support those vendors and just listen to the music on the midway."
Midway acts include:
• Arthur Fratelli, hypnotist, will be performing nightly beginning at 6 p.m.
• Cole Harris will perform at 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 15.
• Eastern Heights will perform at 8 p.m. Thursday, July 16
• Radio Active will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, July 17
• DOC will perform at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 18
The kids and adult pedal pull will be Tuesday evening.
"There are lots of activities to get out of the house a little bit," Pfannenstiel said.
Full details on the fair, including schedules, can be found at the Ellis County website under the government tab.
Fairbooks are available online. Entries will be taken online. If you need a hard copy, the Extension office, 601 Main St., has copies.
Entries are due July 6.
"We want anyone who is comfortable coming to please come out and support the 4-H kids," Pfannenstiel said.
You can also follow the fair on Facebook.