BUSY AS BEES

PALMER — It’s the storm before the hurricane at the Alaska State Fairgrounds.

With the 2010 Alaska State Fair set to open Thursday, the fairgrounds is a buzzing hive of activity as booths, exhibits and carnival rides set up for the 12-day party. Inside the Irwin Exhibits building, Martie Black and Nan Mucha are busy setting up the estimated 900 entries in the Arts and Crafts categories.

“I’ve been doing this since 1978, and keep doing it because I’m crazy,” said Black, who is co-superintendent for Arts and Crafts with Mucha. “I keep coming back for all the good people, the fun people to work with and the fun exhibits.”

In addition to preparing all the Arts and Crafts entries for viewing, Black also is a competitor. She enters her ceramic creations. She’s won ribbons before, but last year her husband, Lester, one-upped her a bit.

“Last year he won Best of Show, and I’ve never won Best of Show,” she said. “So, he can’t enter anymore.”

Inside the Irwin Exhibits building, security is tight. All the entries have been judged and are being displayed with their ribbons. The artists won’t know if or what they won until the fair opens on Thursday, Black said.

And some of them have a lot going for them.

“They’re great artists and have such good imaginations and talent,” she said. “I go to fairs Outside occasionally, and this is equal to any competition I’ve seen there.”

A couple of her favorites are papier-mache creations she calls “the fish from Hell.” Created by Eva Blurton, the grotesque fish feature wild eyes, even wilder teeth and appear more like they swam out of an evolutionary pond than the imagination of a fair contestant.

Then there’s a red clay bowl decorated with a large fish. It was made by 4-year-old Connery Emmery.

“You look at that and you know the 4-year-old made it,” Black said. “Some of these (youth entries) you look at and you can see there’s a lot of mother influence there.”

There’s stained glass, a duct tape tuxedo jacket, a collection of pine cones and moose droppings titled “Fire Starter,” a pickle reclining on a bright yellow Pinewood Derby car and even an angry bowling pin. The eclectic collection of Arts and Crafts entries makes setting up for the fair nearly as fun as the event, Mucha said.

“That’s what we like to have a lot of in our department,” she said. “We like to have a lot of imagination.”

While Black and Mucha were busy Monday setting up the Arts and Crafts exhibits, Jay Erickson had his hands full constructing a booth for the Red Beet Bistro. The Valley café and caterer has a prime corner location just south of the Events Center.

“In this spot, this is our fourth year,” Erickson said. “We won Best Booth the first two years.”

Erickson spent Monday constructing roof and wall panels for the booth, which will be reused at future state fairs. Then he’ll move in the bistro’s equipment and finish up with a gazebo-like area next to the booth for fairgoers to eat under.

At the Red Gate on the far south end of the fairgrounds, the expansive parking lot is groomed and empty as Lisa Sumner works on installing one of five Denali Alaskan Federal Credit Union ATMs on the grounds. All the ATMs need to be in their own little huts painted to match the gates they’re near.

“This is the first year we’ve had five here,” she said. “For the last three or four years, we’ve had one. I guess they were happy with our service.”

The ATM is one of the busiest places at the fair and a sure thing, Sumner said. It’s like a game; put in a plastic card, get money and “everybody breaks even.”

Jeff Stoda of Anchorage-based K&L Distributors was busy with his own project about 100 yards from where Sumner was working rolling out large banners advertising beer available at the fair. K&L sells all the Budweiser, Bud Light and other Alaska-brewed beers at the fair. Last year, fairgoers consumed about 200 kegs of the stuff.

What brings many families to the state fair is the carnival, which was bristling with activity as well. Chelsea Hodge is a Valley resident who works for the carnival during the fair. She spent much of the day Monday setting up a pair of food booths. One, Pete’s Pizza, was getting a thorough window-washing early in the afternoon.

In addition to locating the equipment and booths, carnival employees spend a considerable amount of time cleaning, she said.

“There’s a lot of cleanup. The wagons come down from the fair in Fairbanks or Delta, and they have grease and dirt from coming down the road,” Hodge said. “We have to start about a week before the fair cleaning stuff inside and out.”

It’s work Hodge enjoys.

“It’s a fast pace and you can get a decent paycheck at the end of the fair, and it’s fun,” she said.

The same is true just south of Pete’s Pizza near the Red parking lot where a small army of workers were busy cleaning and polishing the kiddie train. Martin Ctveracek said preparation for a big event like the Alaska State Fair “is, like, five or six days of work. Three days to set all the rides up, then two days or so of cleaning.”

Once the fair begins, “It’s nonstop,” he said.

Back at the Irwin Exhibits building, Black and Mucha were busy trying to make sure all the Arts and Crafts entries are grouped in their correct categories. That’s a challenge when many have incomplete information.

“Here’s one that just says it’s a ‘paper item,’” Mucha said. “Or here’s one that just says ‘blue, yellow and pink.’ I guess that goes with all the other ‘blue, yellow and pink’ things.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.