STANWOOD – Snohomish County may be rapidly urbanizing, but you wouldn’t know it by visiting the Stanwood-Camano Community Fair.
For 73 years, the fair has been a showcase for farm kids and their animals – hogs, horses, goats, pygmy goats, pigeons, chickens and cows.
Friday morning’s rain didn’t dampen the enthusiasm for folks who showed up for opening day of this weekend’s fair.
Debby Nasi of Arlington brought her 15-year-old daughter, Kyrie, and their 6-year-old horse, Bronco, to show in competition. Bronco is not fully broken, so they’ll compete in the “green” division.
As members of the Skagit 4-H Club, they usually go to bigger county fairs, which draw competitors from a wider region. However, organizers of Stanwood’s fair brag that theirs is the biggest community fair in the state, drawing about 40,000 visitors.
This was the Nasis first visit.
“I like it,” Debby Nasi said. “It’s old-fashioned, kind of, isn’t it?”
At the other end of the spectrum are the local families who haven’t missed the fair in years.
Susan Cole and her kids, Lynette, 12, and Scott, 7, shared some giggles with Amy Schlicker, 19, at the vegetable creatures table.
The best-in-show entry of this special category was a giant yellow squash made to look like a chicken, with green onions stuck on like a rooster’s tail.
A curious-looking “mouse” drew questions about what its white body was made of.
“Rice?” Susan Cole said.
“No, it’s coconut,” Lynette said.
“It’s mashed potatoes,” Scott said.
Later, Lynette will show her ducks and her dog in competitions.
Scott will perform in a community theater group that will march in the downtown parade.
“We’ll stay till 10 or 11 every night. We’ll watch Starship,” Susan Cole said of the fair’s headline act.
“We live at the fair every year,” Schlicker said.
They listed some of their fair favorites: the lip-sync contest, the Scandinavian cooking, the deep-fried “onion burst,” the coin scramble in the hay, and hypnotist Jerry Harris.
“I want to get hypnotized,” Lynette said.
Sure, her mother said. But first, they were off to clean the duck cages.
Earlier, Nasi described why fairs are still so popular.
“There’s other things to keep your kids busy besides sports,” Nasi said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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