New fair program appreciated

This is a congratulatory letter for Tyler Riffle, Karen Dykstra’s grandson. Karen, for years, has been the Floriculture Superintendent at the fair. And she used her grandson whenever she needed assistance. Over the years, the fair had used a program called ShoWorks for all open class entries. And to say it was user friendly would be untruthful. Well, Tyler got intrigued about the open class entry program and wrote the program the fair is currently using.

What a God send the new program is. There is almost zero human action required; Tyler’s program does it all – from the ease of setting up an entrant’s account, entering whatever you want to bring to the fair, producing a list of entries for each individual, and when the individual arrives, accepting that person’s entries and eliminating the no-shows. But Tyler’s program doesn’t end there. It continues through the judging process and immediately tabulates who won a blue ribbon for the entries so awarded that prize. And then it tabulates the monetary payout due the exhibitor. The program does all that. It used to take several people many, many hours to do the work that Tyler’s program does automatically.

Wish the fair would have had his program when I was manager. Our staff back then spent many, many hours working the open class entry system – no longer. So this is a thank you to Tyler! That young man developed a specialized program which does everything needed for open class and I wanted to ensure he was recognized for his work. It’s awesome Tyler.

Mike Hashisaki,

Plains