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Weyburn Fair deemed ‘a big success’

By Greg Nikkel The 2018 Weyburn Fair was called “a big success” by the president of the Weyburn Agricultural Society, Jeff Clay, after the eight-day long event wrapped up on Sunday evening.

By Greg Nikkel

The 2018 Weyburn Fair was called “a big success” by the president of the Weyburn Agricultural Society, Jeff Clay, after the eight-day long event wrapped up on Sunday evening.

With this year’s new week-long format, the midway was held on the last four days of the Fair, with half-price rides on Thursday evening helping to provide the biggest crowd of the week, as about 2,500 people came through the gates.

The Fair had 1,200 people on Friday, 1,000 on Saturday and 1,300 on Sunday, including the crowds for the “Rumble in the Ring” demolition derby in the afternoon, said Clay, and earlier in the week around 1,500 came out to see the chuckwagons and chariot races, with 26 wagons racing, one of the biggest groups ever.

“It was a big success, with a new format, and we tried some new things this year. Considering it was like 35 degrees on Friday and Saturday, we did really well,” said Clay, adding he was very pleased about the crowds for the chuckwagon races.

“We had a lot of stuff jammed into a few days,” said Clay, who said the Ag Society will sit down together in a couple of weeks and go over everything. He noted he would like to try this format again, but the Ag Society is going to crunch the numbers to see where they ended up after the Fair.

“From what I saw while I was running around and from I heard from people, I heard way less complaining than I’ve heard other years. I think it was really well-attended for the weather we had, and the format really worked well,” said Clay.

For the Regional 4-H Show, which ran from July 2 to 4, Clay estimated there were around 8-900 a day through the gate, including for the big 4-H sale on Wednesday afternoon. The average price at the sale was $2.59 a pound.

“It’s right where it should be. It’s a dollar above the market price, so these kids were getting a good price for their animals,” said Clay.

The grand champion female, and overall female champion, was shown by Garrett Liebreich of the Radville 4-H Beef Club, who also had the grand champion heifer, with his brother Carson showing the reserve champion heifer.

The grand champion steer was shown by Ben Saffery of the Cymri 4-H Beef Club, and the reserve champion was shown by Kassidy Sjostrand, also from the Cymri club.

Clay said his favourite award was the Breeder’s Herd Award, for which a steer, heifer and a pair of calves were shown, and the winner this year was Ryder Fellner of the Weyburn 4-H Beef Club.

A new feature this year was the Smokers cooking competition, for those who like to smoke their meat over several hours. There were eight entries in the contest, and the winner was the Seriously Smokin’ team from Pense.

There were 14 cars in the Demolition Derby on Sunday, with Jarrett Metheral of Yellow Grass winning first overall, and his brother Mac winning second. In the consolation final, Mark Tribiger of Estevan won first, Kevin Dodd of Weyburn was second and Jenna Metheral of Yellow Grass was third. She was also awarded the Best Dressed trophy.

There were over 300 entrants on hand for the two-day Souris River Rodeo, held on Friday and Saturday, and 25 entrants took part in the DQ Kids Rodeo on Saturday morning.

One area where they could have used more people was the need for volunteers, said Clay, which was the primary reason the Fair didn’t have the fair displays of school work and 4-H projects as in the past, as there wasn’t anyone to organize and run that part of the Fair.

“If someone would like to take that on, we’ll be happy to help them out,” said Clay. “We always need more volunteers, like for the little stuff and helping run the Knockerballs. We’re always looking for more help.”