“OK, Cedar County! We are having a 2020 Cedar County Fair!”
Those were the words posted June 5 to the Cedar County Fair’s Facebook page during a week where area fair decisions were made. Two days earlier, the Muscatine County Fair in West Liberty decided to postpone its fair until 2021.
The Cedar County Fair is located in Tipton, and Cedar County has had far less COVID-19 cases than Muscatine County. Below is the complete statement via the Cedar County Fair:
We reviewed all the surveys and made some educated decisions to have a fair! We have decided to make some extremely hard decisions but want to provide some relevance of “normalcy.”
We have created a “2020 Vision of the Cedar County Fair.” It will not look exactly like the fairs of the past, but as we all know 2020 is nothing like anything from our past.
We wish to announce that these are the following events in the Grandstand:
Clarification: IMCA Sanctioned Sport Mods and Stock Cars. Support class (Airs Cars)
ECIPA -Tractor and Truck Pull
Cedar County Redneck Rodeo
We are very sad that we were unable to make the concert and rodeo work with the limitations that we have been given at this time and are concerned about the possibility of financial issues if we attempted to move forward with them.
We will be having the following open shows:
Open Horse Show
Open Sheep Show
Draft Horse Skills Show
We will be having camping for those who have already registered to camp if you are still interested with the changes in the 4-H/FFA shows. We will be sending out information to all who have already registered and paid for their camping.
Will the 2020 Fair be modified to be able to work with our limitations of the governor’s proclamation? — YES. (50 percent grandstand capacity and social distancing.) Will we do everything in our power to instill safety measures as suggested per our public health and emergency management? — YES. (Lots of hand sanitizers and keeping the social distancing.) Will we be installing options to watch the grandstand activities so that those who cannot or don’t want to be sitting in the grandstand may still be able to see the events? — YES. Will we be providing options to those who will not be able to be in the livestock arenas during competition to watch — YES. Will there be more announcements next week and every time we can make something happen? — Definitely.
We have been working with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach of Cedar County to ensure that the 4-H/FFA youth is our No. 1 priority. We are extremely excited to be able to have our 4-H/FFA youth show off all their hard work at the fairgrounds. All 4-H/FFA livestock projects will be set up in a “Show and Go” style. (LOTS of details will be coming out in the next couple days.)
Although things will not be carried out as we originally planned, we are confident that our youth and families will show leadership as we all do our part to protect each other and the vulnerable people in our county.
With all this said — We need your support! Our hard work is only half the solution. The community’s willingness to attend is the other half.
We are working on the details for this fair. Please give us a little time to get this out to you.
Excited - you bet!
Cautious - absolutely.
Together we will make this happen!