Ag Fair is Best in Show

Ag Fair Is Best in Show

The Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society won four awards including the Best of Show honor at the 2009 Massachusetts Agricultural Fairs’ Association Media Awards competition held this month in Marlborough.

The fair’s poster, by the Vineyard Gazette’s Morgan Lucero, was awarded best of show.

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Summer’s Dizzying Height

Summer’s Dizzying Height

For some people, in other places, the critical deadline to meet each year is April 15, which has something to do with taxes. For many people on the Island, it’s the deadline for entering the annual Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair, which has everything to do with fun. Paperwork for all fair entries is due by Monday at 5 p.m. Those otherwise sweet fair workers can be every bit as strict as the Internal Revenue Service, so don’t test them by tripping in on Tuesday.

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Fair Time Again in West Tisbury
Brittany Lyte

They come for the fun and festivities or they come to claim a first place prize. No matter the motivation, they come — throngs of people eager to turn the turnstiles onto the grounds of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Show and Fair.

Starting Thursday, Island residents and visitors alike will swarm the 148th Annual Agricultural Fair for four days and nights, to hear thrumming tractors and bands of banjos, stain their lips and tongues with blue and red sno-cone juice and dizzy themselves on the chutes of the sky-high carnival slide.

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Fair Weather Shines on Fairgrounds
Brittany Lyte

Just before 10 a.m. on opening day, the livestock pens, fried food booths and motionless carnival rides staked in the grounds of the 148th annual Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Show and Fair were unpeopled and peaceful in the last minutes before the gates opened to a zealous huddle of fairgoers eager to be among the first to sample the spectacles awaiting inside.

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Please Excuse Us While We Have a Calf, and Other Wonders of the Annual Fair
Brittany Lyte

Newborn calves and sun-splashed grounds drew a crowd of more than 30,000 people from across New England to the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Show and Fair this weekend, making the 148th annual festival a triumph.

“Considering the weather and how hot and humid it was all weekend, everything went fine,” said hall manager Kathy Lobb. “Even [Saturday] night with the threat of bad weather, nobody went into a panic.”

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Stolen Poultry at the Fair Leaves Owners, Organizers Asking Why
Jim Hickey

Several chickens entered into the livestock competition of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Fair were stolen from their cages, shattering for many the old-fashioned sense of innocence of the event while prompting officials to consider increased security measures when the fair resumes next year.

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Oxen Take Blue Prize for Annual Fair Poster
Sam Bungey

As entries pour in for the 148th annual Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair, poster competition winner Morgan Lucero is readying her autograph hand.

Ms. Lucero’s winning entry for the highly competitive contest is of a team of strapping oxen attached to a cart in the foreground of the agricultural hall.

“I was very excited, it felt like I’d won the lottery,” said Ms. Lucero yesterday, “It’s the little things in life, you know.”

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Fair Warning: Entry Forms Due Monday, Jobs Open

It’s only just over a week before gates open on the 149th annual Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair on Thursday, August 19, but already it is time to sign up for jobs and prepare your entries for all categories — and time even to mark on your calendar earlier deadlines for next year’s extraordinary celebrations of the 150th fair.

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Young Farmers Prepare to Compete In Ag Fair
Remy Tumin

Anna Sylvia tends to her draft horse Virgil every day at Sweetened Water barn in Edgartown. Whether after work at the SBS Grain store or after school during the winter, Anna takes at least an hour of her day to clean out Virgil’s stall, bathe and ride him. Yes, Anna rides her draft horse.

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All Roads Lead to the Agricultural Fair
Remy Tumin

Tomorrow Vineyarders from all generations will walk into the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury, proudly carrying their artwork, home-grown vegetables, baked goods (the juniors anyway; adult bakers must wait for Thursday morning) and displays. The animals will begin to arrive in the next few days, and that heavenly smell of hay, fried food and the sweetness of August will mingle in the air on Thursday, as the 149th Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair begins.

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