Vendors preparing for 2022 Alaska State Fair season

PALMER— A variety of new and returning vendors from across the state are busily preparing their booths in the final days leading up to the 2022 Alaska State Fair season.

Team Gyro owner Elizabeth Ellis said that she’s looking forward to another busy and fun season at the fondly familiar fairgrounds. She said that last year was a huge huge success and she anticipates the same if not better result this year.

“I’m getting amped up,” Ellis said.

Team Gyro is one of several longtime food vendors operating out of the wooden cabins near the rides and games toward the Red and Green gates.

Ellis said that her father-in-law Terry Ellis established the booth in 1979 and she’s happily carrying on the family tradition.

“There’s lots of opportunities and room to grow at the Fair,” Ellis said. “I love it. I can’t wait to pass it down to my kids.”

St. Michael’s Slippery Gulch is another iconic facility that’s been a part of the Fair experience for a very long time. According to one of the lead volunteers Dee Covalt, Slippery Gulch is the church’s primary fundraising effort and it’s been an annual tradition for over six decades. She noted that they operate out of the same building that was used during the earliest days of the Fair when it was held in downtown Palmer where the Pioneer Home currently stands.

“It brings us all together for one big cause,” Covalt said.

For more information about the 2022 Alaska State Fair, visit alaskastatefair.org.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersma.com