This year’s Hunterdon County 4-H and Agricultural Fair runs Wednesday through Sunday, Aug. 24 to 28 at the Roger K. Everitt fairgrounds, South County Park, 1207 Route 179, just south of Ringoes, N.J.
For many contests for 4-H club members, the fair features shows adults can enter: flowers, fruits, vegetables, baking, jellies and jams and canned foods, handiwork, quilting, beading and more.
All the show details and the complete schedule are available on the website, HunterdonCountyFair.com, by clicking on “Show Information.”
“We know the community looks forward to the fair,” said President Bob Hoffman of Tewksbury Township. “We’ve planned some new and exciting things this year, and we’ll bring back some of the old favorites as well.”
They include the Blindfolded Garden Tractor Driving Contest (part of the Garden Tractor Pull), and a Hay Bale Toss contest, open to all. The list of 4-H animal shows and displays includes horses, sheep, goats, cattle, rabbits, poultry and dogs.
Karen Mallea of Readington Township heads up the Vendor Committee and has lined up a variety of food purveyors. New this year are Hungarian, Greek and Mexican specialties, and a stand featuring all-natural drinks that you create by choosing the base, sweetener and fruit or herbal infusions.
Of course, there’s the traditional “fair fare” vendors of burgers, shish-ka-bob, kettle corn, cotton candy, caramel apples, Italian ice, cheesecake on a stick, funnel cake and several makers of ice cream.
The traditional vegetable show judges choose the best specimens, based on uniformity, quality and other attributes. But there is a separate contest for biggest entries of various fruits and vegetables, the largest, longest, and so on. There’s a flower show with 36 classes and a farm crops contest with 32 classes.
New this year is Agri-Puppets, an audience-participation educational and entertaining puppet show about agriculture and farm animals, to help people learn what farmers do and where their food comes from.
The Main Stage will offer all kinds of acts, shows and presentations each day and night, organized and hosted by volunteer Dan “Doctor D” Torrone, a professional entertainer based in Clinton. He and many others involved in running the non-profit fair are former Hunterdon 4-H members.
“Tractor Dave” Bond, a Delaware Township farmer, and his Real Country band take the stage at Thursday night around 6:30 p.m. They’ll be followed by Stone Hearth bluegrass band. Fireworks at dusk is featured Friday night, during a break in the Cramer Brothers Band country show.
There are a variety of amusement rides, including some just for kiddies. Tractor pulls are both Wednesday morning and evening, along with a garden tractor pull Saturday morning and a pedal tractor pull for kids on Sunday. The Wednesday night show, which includes a pickup truck class, costs $5 per spectator. All other shows and entertainment are free, as is admission.
Parking is $15 per vehicle. The fee is shared with the volunteer fire companies whose members supervise the parking fields, and the rescue squad on scene all during the fair. Successor to Flemington Fair, the event was held at Flemington fairgrounds starting in 2000, moving to its current site four years later.
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