6,900 attend
Lauren Rozell is new Caroline Idol
By Ed Simmons, Jr.
cpreporter@lcs.net
"I told you we could do it, and we got it done!" said Fair manager Mack Wright, Monday after the Caroline County Agricultural Fair wound down, the greatest Caroline's ever had, and with local singing sensation Lauren Rozell crowned the new Caroline Idol.
In a Herculean effort unfolding over four short months, Fair volunteers constructed three enormous pavilions, thanks to donors L.J. Moyer, Jacqueline Martin, Henry Steigleder, Charles Amos, Walden Abernathy, Jerry Norville and John Green. To finish paying barn costs, the Fair manager announced he and four highly respectable, proper gents would dress up like lively ladies and wriggle on stage with Casper if $18,000 more was raised by Saturday. As good fortune had it, more generous donors rose to the call, and bugaloo the five dignified gentlemen-ladies did, done up in bright red lipstick, Moo Moos, voluminous brassieres, support hose and ladies' hot pink church hats – they were, along with Mack Wright, the gorgeous and vivacious Herbert Tate, Bill Benner, Audie Hayes and Wick Coleman, all attractively slenderized from working on the barns in the brutal heat.
Highlights of the Fair were multitudinous – The Fun Dog Show, Sheep Hog & Cattle Show, Frank Carneal's Civil War Encampment, Most Popular Animal Pen, Antique Tractor Show, Corn Shucking, Racing Pigs, Racing Ducks, Watermelon Swallowing, Biggest Zucchini Contest, Milford Station, Cactus Jack, The Embers, Hay Rides, Trolley Rides, Barrel Race, Fun Time Tractor Race and The Caroline Idol. Lauren Rozell, who won Idol, featured songs like "Gunpowder and Lead," and runner-up J.R. Carter sang "He Stopped Loving Her Today." Altogether there were 12 singers.
In other highlights, Robin Hall reported that the Antique and Classic Truck Show winners donated their cash prizes to help pay for the barns, and plenty other winners did the same. Also braving the high-90 temperatures, 12 fox hunters of the Caroline Hunt Club trotted their mounts as they worked twelve foxhounds, following the bugle. "Nobody passed out from the heat, thank goodness," said fox hunter Elizabeth Gravatt. For most people though, shelter from the sun was thankfully plentiful under the high roofed barns and inside the air conditioned L.J. Moyer Pavilion-Shirley Flagg Green Multi-Purpose Area where the beribboned Home Goods were laid out. Here too you could read about wonderful grandparents, as written by their equally wonderful grandchildren Jamal Moore, Brandi Martin, Shamar Coleman and Amber Blackett.
Here also you could also marvel at the 120-year-old Tip Top White Enamel and Cast Iron Woodburning Kitchen Stove made at the Southern Stove Works right here in Richmond, Virginia. On display too at the Home Goods of Yesteryear Exhibit were a slew of antique kitchen implements. If you have tinware, eggbeaters or anything else from a farmer's wife's kitchen to contribute for next year, be sure to call Macine Williams or Susan Sili. Sunday morning, the happenings were still going strong as Carmel Baptist Church held their morning service in the J. Stuart Martin Pavilion with about 100 attending, including carnival workers who received sweet doses of religion along with Bibles, MP3s and CDs. Wearing his big white cowboy hat, Pastor Steve Nelson played his djembi (African drum) while wife Angela thumped the keyboard with Jennifer Howard on bass and Kevin Brungard strumming guitar. Wick Coleman who was everywhere helping out showed up for the Carmel Baptist service with his last ounce of energy to help with the sound system.
By Monday morning, Fair president Fran Whittaker needed some resting but reported she was really, really happy how the Fair went. Also on Monday, Buster Tate said he was thrilled by the success of the Livestock Show that featured 26 exhibitors of which 21 were young people, mostly 4-H-ers, including many from Hanover and Goochland. Six youngsters showed cattle for the first time, and two showed lambs and two showed hogs. There to help him were Sissy Coleman, Mary Benner, Jacque Rosenmarkle and Susan Jackson. "Everybody felt good about the Fair. It could have been a little cooler, but everything was just fine," said Buster, pleased too with the new airy barn named for his father, James R. Tate, Sr. Likewise for Buster's brother Herbert who lost 25 pounds laboring on the barns. "Everybody seemed really happy," he said, "and we're looking forward to next year." The third Tate brother, Kenny, reported his shoes about stuck forever to the hot barn roofs in the rush to get the buildings ready. The Tate family, which also includes Ann, Nancy, David, Lynda, Susan, Linda, Debbie and Sylvia, donated the breezy 40-acre Fair site on the Tate Family Farm.