By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – The Clallam County Fair hosts a rodeo every year but, other than that, the rodeo arena sits largely unused for the rest of the year.
Don Crawford, Director of Clallam County’s Parks, Fairs and Facilities Department, wants to change that. He thinks that making a few upgrades to the facility would help to not only make the annual rodeo a bigger and better event, but could attract more rodeo events each year.
“I am basically the transmission. The engine in all this is the rodeo committee, which works for the fair board, and so they have said we have a good facility. Better than some of the facilities that junior rodeo and the high school rodeo go to, and if we would just make some upgrades, and make a few changes, they thought we could recruit those organizations to do rodeos in Port Angeles.”
Crawford says they’re not talking about huge upgrades, mostly fixing, updating and polishing what’s already in place. To that end, he’s applying for a Kubota Hometown Proud Grant of $100,000. The goal is to pay for the upgrades he needs, but to do it without pulling money away from other important county services.
“I’m all about getting more use out of the fairgrounds. That’s what Shari Ioffrida and I spend a lot of time working together on. So, we have some operational funds that we always have earmarked for upkeep. But, I want to be real clear. It’s not like the county is deciding, “We’re going to fix the rodeo arena versus helping the Serenity House.” We’re going to do this anyway, it might take a few more years, but the County’s not going to put any money into to it beyond the basic, you know, replacing nuts and bolts that we do every year.”
Crawford made a point to add one last message for fairgoers this summer.
“Just, if I can put in a plug, the rodeo this year and the logging show at the fair this year are going to be the best we’ve had in a very, very long time. The rodeo committee is working their tail feathers off to make sure that we have a good prize pot. So, we’re going to be able to attract talent that we haven’t been able to attract in the past. And so, the public should be really enthusiastic about seeing a first-class rodeo and a first-class logging show this year.”
The Clallam County Fair’s theme this year is “Country Nights and Carnival Lights”, August 17-20.