MOSES LAKE — The Grant County Fair had its opening ceremony yesterday at 10 a.m. around AN empty flagpole with an audience of more than 100 people. The smell of fried goods and livestock filled the air.  

The ceremony opened with Angel Koehn singing the National Anthem. Following Koehn’s performance, Jim Beck and Norm Keith from American Legion Post 209 raised both the American Flag and the Grant County Fair flag.  

The two have been raising the flag at the opening fair ceremony for a handful of years. 

“It comes with honor and compassion,” Beck said. “It is an honor to open up an event like this and it’s compassion with how we pulled the flag and handled the flag.”  

Grant County Commissioner Danny Stone then spoke about how there were new improvements to the fairgrounds this year. This included accessible pathways, speed bumps, walkways, graded areas behind the rodeo, cleaning and safety pads in six barns, added water and lights to five barns, electrical repairs, planted trees, new eclectic signs, picnic tables and refrigerated display cases. Grant County has spent or authorized about $8.1 million dollars in the past four years to improve the grounds, he said.  

“They’ve all done a tremendous job of making sure that this fair is one of the greatest fairgrounds in the state,” Stone said. “I haven’t been to that many fairgrounds, but I know this is dang good.”  

According to Jim McKiernan, Grant County Fairgrounds director, the fair has in excess of 300 volunteers and $100,000 in sponsorships.  

“This couldn’t have been done without the community, our sponsors, volunteers, the employees in the red and everyone I have already thanked,” McKiernan said.  

The ceremony ended with Jake Barth, Auctioneer/Operations for Chuck Yarbro Auctioneers, LLC speaking about how this is the finish line for a lot of these kids competing in Future Farmers of America events. He said that most students started raising their animals six months to a year ago.  

“There were students when we had negative 30-degree wind chill in January making sure animals were fed and secured in their stall,” Barth said. “When we had 105-degree July heat, they were making sure they had fresh water. So as important as this week is and it is, don't get me wrong, there is so much that happens before weighing in and that's where the lessons are learned.”  

The Grant County Fair continues through Saturday with a variety of events, FFA competitions, food and carnival rides.  

Correction: Jim McKiernan is the fairgrounds director and spoke during the opening ceremony, not Maintenance Supervisor Chris Turner. This correction has been made above. Angel Koehn's last name has been corrected above.