Fair Board starts planning for 2023

It was the first Sanders County Fair Commission meeting of the year and the first time for newly elected Commissioners John Holland and Dan Rowan to attend a fair meeting.

"I wanted to see what they were doing and what they had going in the works," said Rowan, the former mayor of Plains. Holland had been a member of the Plains School Board, which routinely had their meetings on the same night as the fair board's meetings. Both asked several questions of Melissa Cady, the fair manager, and Randy Woods, the board chairman. "It was important to attend the fair board's regular meeting and hear the plans being made for this year," said Rowan.

The commissioners were the only two members of the public to attend the meeting, which lasted just under 50 minutes in the fairgrounds pavilion last Wednesday evening. The board passed two motions, first of which was voting to change the Internet service from Bigsky Networks to Blackfoot Telecommunications, at an increase of about $50 a month, said Cady, who said that she's had little to no Internet service over the last two months. She said it's been spotty most of the time. The board unanimously passed the motion for the switch. "The whole county uses Blackfoot, so it makes sense for us to use them for all our services," said Cady.

In an effort to get more big-name rodeo riders and bull riders to the Sanders County Fair, the board is sponsoring competitors at other rodeos and the manager has been attending other competitions to make contacts in hopes of bringing more riders to compete at the Sanders County Fair, according to Woods. "We can get the people here, but if you don't have the show, it doesn't work and that's what we're working on," said Woods.

"One thing the board has been tagged with doing a few years ago by the commissioners is to make this event center more successful and to try to be more self supportive as much as we can," Woods told the commissioners. He added that they've advertised to get more people to attend the fair, but they also need to get more riders to participate. He added that one avenue is to get the Sanders County Fair name out to other rodeos.

"By going out there to some of those riders, going to these events, sponsoring some of this stuff and getting our name out there, now those riders are seeing it and coming to our event," Woods added. Cady has also gone to several rodeos to look for corporate sponsors for Sanders County. "I think it's extremely beneficial for us to sponsor this, especially with the up and coming saddle bronc and bareback riders," said Cady, the fair manager for almost three years. "I personally think it's money well spent for us to get our name out there," she added.

In February, Woods and Cady plan to attend Powder River's "Battle of the Scholars," a bareback and saddle bronc rodeo in Miles City that Powder River Rodeo hosts each year. "We are one of the rodeo committees that are sponsoring this to encourage more riders to participate in our rodeo," said Cady. The board approved a $500 sponsorship at the Battle of the Scholars, where Cady will have a Sanders County rodeo banner displayed.

Sanders County Fair was the jacket sponsor for the bull riding at Montana Circuit Finals in Great Falls last weekend, said Cady, where she also displayed a local fair banner. Cady attends as many rodeos in Montana as possible in an effort to encourage riders to attend the Sanders County Fair rodeo. "I work on rodeo sponsors all year building relationships with the local and national businesses. We now have at least 100 sponsors and last year our sponsorship money and donations were close to $60,000," said Cady, who added that she's always searching for beneficial sponsors. "We have several levels of sponsorship that I can discuss with potential sponsors," she said. Woods told Rowan and Holland that they did the same things with the demolition derby in an effort to draw more drivers. At other rodeos, announcers have mentioned Plains rodeos numerous times.

Getting sponsors for the fair's events was extremely beneficial, according to Woods, who said that in his first year on the fair board, they fetched less than $10,000. Woods told the commissioners that rental fees four years ago were around $6,000 for the year and now they're pushing $45,000. He told them the commissioners at that time wanted to make the fairgrounds a year round facility instead of merely five days a year.

The board also unanimously approved raising the credit card cap to $4,000 - $6,000 during August - because the county is slow to make payments, said Woods. Though normally done at the January meeting, the board decided to schedule the election of board officers at the March meeting.

Though this year's fair is not for another seven months, Cady is working on getting vendor spaces filled. She'll soon be sending applications to returning vendors. Cady is already getting interest from last year's vendors, including Spin-Em Rodeo Company, which had a theft of some $7,000 worth of merchandise last year during fair time. Cady said they'd even like to sponsor the rodeo.

She said the Sanders County Concessions Group will likely take only one or two booths and one of the hot dog and pizza vendors is not coming back, but she hopes to have a few new food vendors. Cady also said the monster truck competitors are scheduled to lease the fairgrounds July 14 and 15. She said that Top Dawg Arena Cross is interested in leasing the main arena for the third year for motocross races sometime in late July or early August, but she plans to raise the leasing cost on them from $3,000 to $4,500 or $5,000.

In an effort to address the biggest complaint of last year's fair, the manager said she and board member Kim McMahon plan to meet with Sherry McKay, owner of Paradise Amusements of Post Falls, Idaho, to discuss the problems, talk about options and renew the contract.

The county also hired a part-time employee, Larry Collins, as an assistant groundskeeper. He and Kim McNeil, the head caretaker, are now also responsible for the "beach park."