I’ve been hearing it everywhere I go: This year’s edition of the Grant County Fair was the best in a long time. Mindy Winegar and her crew, along with the fair board members and a small army of volunteers, always do a good job, but everything was just better this year, by all accounts.

It had to help that the weather cooperated — it wasn’t too hot, it didn’t rain and we weren’t inundated by wildfire smoke. Nor could it hurt that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to fade into our collective rearview mirror. Slowly but surely, people seem to be relaxing more and more as we gain more distance from those dark days of business closures, school shutdowns and mask requirements.

Attendance was up 15% over last year, Winegar said, with about 15,000 visitors over the course of the fair, compared with around 13,000 least year. And there was just more for all those people to see and do at this year’s fair, with a record number of exhibitors and vendors — all of which translates into a better experience for fair attendees — not to mention more money flowing into the local economy.

You can read all about it in this week’s edition of the Blue Mountain Eagle, which will also carry four pages of results from the fair’s various juried competitions and some of our favorite photos from this year’s fair.

In case you missed last week’s paper, we had stories on the latest resignations to rattle John Day city government, a local teen’s lifesaving senior project, a local high school barrel racer, the Josh Turner concert, the legendary Legion burger and more.

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— Bennett Hall, Editor