Sanders County Fair canceled

The Sanders County Board of Health voted to cancel this year’s county fair at a special meeting Thursday evening at the fair pavilion.

Commissioners Tony Cox and Carol Brooker, along with retired Dr. Jack Lulack and retired veterinarian Bob Gregg, voted in favor of canceling the fair while Commissioner Glen Magera voted against shutting it down. The board was concerned about the fair resulting in an outbreak of the coronavirus in Sanders County, where there has been no confirmed cases of the virus.

Several members of the Board of Health and the Sanders County Fair Commission spoke prior to the vote, as did several members of the community, including Dr. Greg Hanson, CEO of Clark Fork Valley Hospital and Physician’s Assistant Nick Lawyer, who gave a special presentation with several COVID-19 statistics and the possible impact on Sanders County if the fair were to take place. Twenty-four people from Plains, Paradise, Thompson Falls and Hot Springs attended the meeting; a dozen wore protective safety masks.

Randy Woods, fair board chairman, said they had a good plan to have a good and safe fair. Fair board member Kim Bergstrom spent around 40 hours researching and writing a three-page Communicable Disease Plan. Woods said they learned from the Monster Truck Rally on July 4 that they need to find a better way of making sure of social distancing. Enforcing social distancing seemed to be the crux of the problem, according to several in opposition to continuing with the fair.