Staff and volunteers kick off Greene County Fair fun

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) – The first day of the Greene County Fair kicked off on Monday, as staff and volunteers finished up the last few things before gates open.

“Our biggest things today are basically getting stuff ready for ticket booths, getting everything ready for admission for tonight, and just last minute little cleanup stuff,” said Rick Clark, President of the Greene County Fair Association.

Clark told News Channel 11 on Monday that overall preparation for the fair takes about a year of planning, once this fair ends they will start working on next years event right away.

“The hardest stuff to prep for is just all the commercial exhibits and everything that comes in,” said Clark. “The organization of that, trying to get those organized and vendors in the spots that they belong to.”

This year, the fair added a few new things, one being the “farm agricultural wars.”

“We’ll have a high school-age kids that will compete with that,” said Clark. “That’s things like hay bale tossing and stuff like that, so farm-centric type stuff with that.”

Rhonda Humbert, Vice President of the Greene County Fair Association, said that safety is a number one priority for the people that come to attend the festivities. Although recent rain has brought slightly cooler temperatures, the heat and the sun can still be dangerous if you’re not properly hydrated.

“We have an air-conditioned building at the Expo Building,” said Humbert. “A lot of the churches up in our commercial building are giving free water away, so there is free water.”

More rain is expected next week, but Humbert said they are prepared.

“We have EMA keeping us abreast of any weather around us, so we will keep everybody safe by monitoring the weather,” said Humbert. “If we see any storms at least 15 miles out, EMA is at a safe command post monitoring the weather.”

On site at the fairgrounds are plenty of first aid stations and law enforcement officers in case of any emergencies.

The Greene County Fair runs July 22- 27.

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