Jones Co. fairs request FY 2026 county funding

     Both the Great Jones County Fair and Wyoming Fair Association met with the Jones County Supervisors during their Jan. 28 board meeting to request funding for FY 2026.

   The GJCF requested $25,000; Wyoming Fair, $4,211.

   GJCF Manager Lucas Gobeli said his request is different this year both in terms of how they plan to expense the funds, but also an increased request from past years.

   “I’m requesting funds to match for grants going forward as we look at building the new main entrance,” he said.

   Last year, Gobeli met with the board and City of Monticello to present concepts of the proposed new entrance, that would be built at the corner of N. Maple Street and E. Seventh Street.

   The fair is currently in the design phase. Gobeli said in two to three months they’ll have ther design finalized and can look at going out to bid.

   “At the same time, we’re researching grants and starting that application process,” he said. “We’re looking at some tourism grants. In the past, the (county) funding has gone into operations.”

   In terms of the construction timeline, he said he would know more in a few months.

   “The fair itself has put a half million into it already,” Gobeli said of dedicating funds. “We’re getting closer to our SVOG (Shuttered Venue Operations Grant) being closed out. At that point, we’ll have additional funds freed up that we could commit to this project. Based off the initial estimates, that puts us over half way where we need to be. The earliest we could start would be July 21 of this year, the day after the fair. Otherwise, it would be July of the following year.”

   Gobeli said the new entrance will give them the ability to get fairgoers in and out faster, provide them with a positive fair experience, “an overall enjoyable experience for them.”

   There would be six ticket windows, some manned by people, some electronically.

   Last year, the fair had two lanes for the public to flow through with metal detectors. Gobeli said the plan is to add more lanes.

   “We could probably add another two lanes at least with the space that we'd have in order to double the capacity,” he said. “And that's something we'll start this year from 8 in the morning until 9 at night. Everyone is going to be going through metal detectors this year. The past couple of years it's more during the busy times, but we're expanding that timeframe. Unfortunately, that's in the place we're at.”

   Guy and Andy Petersen with the Wyoming Fair requested in writing $2,105.50. But during their presentation with the board, Andy said, “Costs continue to go up, as you all know. I think as far as an ask goes, we would request the restoration from the funding from two years ago. Just trying to get caught back up again from a facilities perspective.”

   Last year, the supervisors cut all outside funding requests in half due to budget constraints.

   After last year’s Wyoming Fair, Andy said they ran into some unexpected electrical issues that turned into a larger project than anticipated.

   “A lightning storm last summer knocked down a couple of fuses to the main service,” he explained. “When the electrician opened the box up it completely fell apart in his hands. So we've had to move some things around to accommodate that very expensive fix.”

   He said the goal is to bury the electrical lines underground.

   Andy said their attendance in 2024 was down by about 1,000 people. Less profit and higher expenses, he said, has made it difficult.

   “My forecast for the fair this year is similar to last year just because of the weekend it fell on,” he continued. “There are only 52 weekends in a year and when you look over the three-month period, there's a lot of fairs and festivals. The majority of our board members and attendees and help are heavily involved in the GJCF. And the GJCF is a driver for when other fairs and festivals set their schedule, especially neighboring counties. We will be back-to-back with GJCF again this year.”

   Guy said Wyoming, Cedar, and Delaware County fairs always seem to be at the same time every year. He said Cedar and Delaware fairs “are hard on our attendance.

   “We have really heavy competition,” Guy said. “If we move our date, we're going to jump on top of somebody else. It's not going to help us, and certainly not going to help somebody else either. Those are some of the challenges that we face.”