Fair fun starts with exhibits

Are your amaranthuses astounding? Is your homebrew a home run? Do you have a spectacular swine or gorgeous goat? Then you better start planning if you want to share exhibits at the Alaska State Fair.

"You really should enter that in the fair" is a line many people have heard after they have showed off their great photograph, rabbit or cross-stitch. With the Alaska State Fair just weeks away, now is the time for exhibitors to get ready for the big event.

Take the lesson learned by Tom Scolding, a homebrewer who did not get the chance to enter his fine India Pale Ale last year because he didn't plan ahead.

"Everybody who tried it loved it," Scolding said. "I've never entered anything in the fair, but I decided to finally do it with that beer."

The only problem was that people were enjoying the beer the week before the fair, and the entry deadline had already passed.

"This year I'm going to make sure to be early," Scolding said. "And of course, I don't have an entry as good as I would have had last year with the IPA. Isn't that always the case, though?"

If somebody can grow it, raise it or make it, they can basically enter it into the Alaska State Fair. Exhibits range from art to animals, with everything in between. But if you have something you'd like to enter in the fair, you had better start thinking about it sooner rather than later.

The Alaska State Fair is the most attended event in Alaska, and as much as people look forward to the rides, the food and the entertainment, they look forward to it just as much for the exhibits -- and the opportunity to enter exhibits of their own.

Last year, 9,000 exhibits were entered into the Alaska State Fair, said Pamella Meekin Troutman, the vendor and exhibit director of the Alaska State Fair.

"Each year, the number of entries fluctuates, mostly because of the live plants and flowers," she said. "They are really popular entries, and it all depends on the season we have. This has been a good year for growing, so it'll probably go up."

While each exhibit has a different deadline, most fall within the range of Aug. 11 through the first days of the fair, giving exhibitors just two weeks in some cases, to have their entry ready to showcase.

Nonperishables, such as artwork and photography, can be dropped off at the Northway Mall on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, or at the Alaska State Fairgrounds on Aug. 15 and Aug. 16. Perishables can be entered on Aug. 20 and Aug. 27 for two different competitions. Animal exhibits have different deadlines as well.

"We take all the Anchorage entries, pack them up and bring them out here," Troutman said. "It makes it more convenient for everyone to have the two days in town."

For agriculture, if you don't have an entry already in mind, you may be too late. Radical rutabagas don't just shoot up overnight.

"Contests like the giant cabbage, you have to be working on that all summer long," said Wasilla gardener Gary Scott. "For the most part, if you are trying to raise and enter large vegetables, you are doing it all summer, not the last couple weeks leading up to the fair.

"A lot of people raise vegetables just for the fair. They don't go out in the garden and say, 'Geez, look at that. I've got a 100-pound cabbage.' That just doesn't happen," Scott said.

The first step to enter an exhibit is to pick up an exhibitors guide, which are available at local public libraries.

The 2003 edition will be the last one printed -- copies are available online, which can be printed (they're 48 pages), and that's the only way people will be able to pick up copies.

In the media guide, you'll find every contest and exhibit, as well as entry dates, times and locations. Any special awards given within each exhibit division is also noted in the guide, along with the special award prizes.