Hillsborough County Fair - Suzanne Holcomb

The Hillsborough County Fair opens Thursday (November 2nd). Its executive director describes it as a traditional county fair. It has a rodeo, truck and tractor pull, a demolition derby, and plenty of livestock shows. We speak with Suzanne Holcomb.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News. The Hillsborough County Fair is coming up
over the next two weekends. Itis a part of life in Hillsborough County
every November. Suzanne Holcombe is theexecutive director of the Hillsborough County Fair and
she joins us on Beyond the News. Suzanne Holcombe, welcome, thank you
for having me. Well. Ofcourse, when people hear about fairs around

(00:23):
here, they think of mega eventslike the Florida State Fair which is in
Tampa every year, and the StrawberryFestival and Plant City where there's so much
entertainment going on that the I guessthe base purpose of a fair when you're
talking about celebrating agriculture and livestock,can kind of get lost in the shuffle.
And the reason that there is aHillsboro County Fair, I take it

(00:47):
is to kind of bring the focusback on that local agriculture and the local
people and the local young people especiallywho are you know, working to base,
you know, working in livestock,working in agriculture, and kind of
bringing it back to that local focus. Yes, sir, so we're you

(01:10):
know, we're celebrating our thirtieth yearthis year and we're looking forward to it
because, like you said, we'rea traditional county fair. So even though
we have everything that you have ata typical fair festival. We have the
rides and the carnival food, ourmain focus is the showcase that those youth
projects, particularly those in youth agriculture, and we have over six hundred kids

(01:34):
from Hillsborough County exhibiting animals this yearwith their livestock projects. We have hundreds
of arts and crafts, photography entries, su Yes, the true purpose of
our fare is and and it's kindof funny because our fame this year is
called Rooted in Tradition, So itreally takes a look and at where we've

(01:57):
come over the years, but alsoshow casing use and the future we have
in agriculture in this county. Andin a general sense, with all the
urbanization that's been going on, andI know there's been an effort to try
to protect some rural activity in HillsboroCounty, people may lose sight of the
fact that, especially if they haven'tbeen here a long time, that there

(02:19):
is a deeply rooted rural and agriculturaltradition in Hillsboro County that is so true
and looking at things. We areabout five generations removed truly from production agriculture
in this county, and so wereally like to showcase agriculture, the traditions
of the county, to highlight agricultureand the history, but also those youth

(02:43):
as well. We have a newexhibit this year based about ag education,
so people can come in and learnabout production agriculture, learn where their food
comes from, and really try tohighlight that educational fact as well, because
like you said, we are moreurbanized and so we're trying to bring agriculture

(03:05):
back so people, you know,have that education and can learn a little
bit more. Well, what's goingto be going on at the fair this
year? How many days is itgoing to be open, and what are
some of the things that you youthink people are really going to want to
see? Okay, So we openon the November second and run through to
twelfth, so we're open for elevenstraight days. We have again that highlight

(03:29):
use agriculture where we have eleven differentspecies of animals being shown. We have
our events going on in our arena, so we have three days of an
all new produced rodeo, We havetwo nights of a truck and tractor pull,
which is always a fun event.And then we end on the Sunday,
November twelfth with a highlight of ourdemolition derby where it's Last Man Standing,

(03:54):
our Last Car Standay, and Ishould say to have a grand finale
in that arena. But we alsooffer free entertainment. We have lots of
shows that are coming in. Wehave an all new paulp Onion Lumberjacks show
that I'm really excited about. Wehave an open air circus, we have
our educational Firefighters show, a magicshow, a cool Zoo animal encounter which

(04:20):
I think is just going to bea really neat experience. And again all
those free entertainment shows are just freeto the public with general admission. And
how much is the general admission thisyear, so eleven dollars for adults,
nine dollars for students. But wehave so many daily promotions. We have

(04:43):
both Thursdays of the fair are carloadnights, so you can get eight people
in that includes admission and right armbands for sixty dollars, so that's a
great deal. We also have afree admission Monday, we have two dollars
Tuesday and dollar Day Wednesday, soif you want to come out middle the
week, we have some really greatspecials there, all right, And what

(05:03):
hour are you going to be openeach day? And what's the location of
the fair? Okay, so ourlocation is two fifteen Sydney Washer Road.
That's in Dover. It's just eastof Brandon on Highway sixty. And then
as far as hours are concerned,our hours depend on the day, but

(05:23):
most days weekdays we open the gatesat five pm, stay open until ten
and then during the weekends we openat ten am and stay open till eleven
pm. So plenty of hours foreveryone to come out and visit us at
the fair. Sounds like there willbe a lot going on. Susanne welcome
the executive director of the Hillsboro CountyFair. Thank you for joining us on

(05:45):
Beyond the News.