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The Sanders County Fair might be without a carnival next year, announced Fair Commission Chairman Randy Woods at last week's board meeting.

According to Woods, Sherry McKay, owner of Paradise Amusements of Post Falls, Idaho, said she's tired of the complaints and will not be returning to the Sanders County Fair. For the last two years, there have been numerous complaints about the carnival. Fair board member Jim Newman walked the carnival this year and gave out free tickets and Paradise Amusements reduced prices on the Thursday of the fair, and still the complaints persisted.

Paradise Amusements has been the Sanders County Fair carnival for some 30 years. It was the only carnival during Mike Hashisaki's management from 1990 to 2015, when he retired.

Newman said that maybe the fair could have worked something out with McKay, such as the fair taking less of a cut. He said the cost was the biggest complaint from people, although criticism included the lack of rides, no rides for two-year-olds, the concessions, long lines at the ticket booth, and at the last meeting someone complained that employees working the rides didn't speak English. Woods said he told McKay what the people wanted and she responded that "you need to find a carnival because you no longer have one."

The carnival was but one item discussed at last Wednesday's monthly fair board meeting at the fairgrounds pavilion, attended by nearly a dozen community members, including Sanders County Commissioners Dan Rowan and Johnny Holland. It was the board's first meeting since the resignation of Melissa Cady, the fair manager, who quit because of health problems. In lieu of her departure, Woods had asked the commissioners what direction they'd like to see for the fair, such as looking for corporate sponsors for the rodeo. "We need to set a goal on what we're going to do and what direction we want to go. Is this going to be a 4-H fair with a ranch rodeo, or is this going to be a PCRA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) event like we've been having?" he asked.

Woods told the crowd that the rodeos never made money until two years ago. He said that if they go with the PCRA rodeo, it had to be decided that night in order to get big sponsors and top riders and before candidates for the job are interviewed. He also said that a decision needed to be made whether or not to get the travel expenses to get to rodeo conventions for those sponsors. He said if they want the fair to continue making money with the rodeos, they need the sponsors.

"We want to keep the rodeo. You guys have created a wonderful rodeo," said Holland, though he added that he'd like the board to consider having the PRCA two nights instead of three and have a concert or a local ranch type rodeo on one night. Newman suggested they continue with the three days of PRCA rodeo for next year and look into changing it in 2025. "I know they had a concert in the past and they lost their shirt on it," said Newman.

"The demo derby seems to be what makes the money here at the fair, so you're going to want to keep the demo derby," said Holland, who also wants to see the 4-H promoted more and he'd like to see more open class entries in the horticulture, floriculture and the home economics barns. "They're empty compared to what they used to be," he said. He also wants more local vendors back, particularly the nonprofit organizations that made up the Sanders County Concessions Group. Holland also wants the board to again allow the local fire departments to sell their 50/50 tickets at the fair without them having to pay for a booth.

The manager position has been posted at the courthouse in Thompson Falls. Members of the fair board are temporarily filling in some of the gaps until a new manager is hired. Wednesday was the five-year anniversary meeting for Woods, who became the chairman the following January. He said he had to take over the fair manager's position when Chris McGuigan resigned, which required Woods to do the contracts for that year's fair, a time consuming job, he said. However, he said that he now has two businesses and serves as the Hot Springs mayor and fire department chief and doesn't have a lot of time to do the contracts needed for the 2024 fair.

Woods said he has taken a lot of "flack" recently over complaints about the fair and there have been conflicts within the board. "The last six to eight months there's been some turmoil on the board, which is not good. The board needs to be one unit working for one goal," said Woods. "Part of this is my fault, not doing my due diligence and making sure the board is working together working the problems out," he said.

He pointed out that the present commissioners have a different view on how things should be run at the fair, which he added isn't necessarily bad, but he also said he and the board need to know because they have to be doing the major contracts - carnival, rodeo, demolition derby - for next year's fair now. He said the food and commercial vendors can be done at a later date.

Woods said that he wants the fair to make money rather than having the taxpayers support it. "That is my thing since the day I was put on this board. We have not borrowed a nickel." Michele McGuigan, whose husband was fair manager before Cady, said her husband took over the fairgrounds when it was in the red, but had it in the black before he left.

The last commissioners wanted the fairgrounds to be a year round event center and rent the grounds and buildings instead of being used only five days a year for the fair, but Woods said he's been getting "push back" from several 4-H people. Michele McGuigan said that the 4-H kids have had to clean the horse stalls and repair stalls after they were rented to the general public.

The chairman recognized that in some situations it's just been a matter of change and people don't like change, he said. Woods noted that former commissioners seldom showed up at the monthly meetings, but Rowan and Holland are regulars, which he believes is a positive sign and shows they're interested.

Perhaps the loudest contention at the meeting was another discussion about the derby. Thompson Falls resident Rick Sanders brought up that the fair doesn't need to spend $80,000 on a promoter to run the derby. Woods said that if the community wants to drop the promoter and go back to paying $10,000 and have a payout of $5,000, he could go that route. Sanders, a demo driver for 40 years, doesn't believe they should drop the payout amount, but he believes they could go back to the old rules and they don't have to pay so much for a promoter.

"I could run this show for 1,500 bucks as long as the fair pays the expenses," he said, adding that they don't need a big promoter to do the job because it promotes itself. Sanders said that in 2020, when the fair was looking for a person to run the derby, he put in a proposal, but it was never looked at.

"We need somebody that's going to come in, have a set of rules, everybody sticks to the rules, we don't change the rules, and you make it easier for your local guys to come around," said Sanders. Board member Ted Forkum told Sanders he needs to put forth a proposal showing what he can provide before they would consider him for the job. "You need to show me what you can do and you need to show what you have to prove that you can do it. I'm not going to put my neck on the line for you if you don't have any backing," said Forkum.

Woods said the present promoter provides all the necessary equipment to run the event. He said that the county does not have the insurance to cover a demo derby, which means the promoter has to have it. Woods said that insurance is needed, which is why the promoter has it.

Dialogue between Sanders and Woods eventually got heated. "The promoter takes care of everything, the only thing we do is sell butts in the seats," said Woods. "I don't care what you've heard, I don't care what stories you have, I've heard your stories all the time and I'm tired of listening to them," he said. "You're the most rude person I've ever seen," said Sanders. "I really don't care. I'm just tired of listening to you, so we're going to move on," responded Woods.

Holland told the board that the commissioners are not there to run the fair. "This is the biggest production in Sanders County. It's the biggest thing we have. We want it to be positive for the citizens and we want it to work," said Holland.

"If we're going to do some major changes, we need to get our contracts in place right now and then we need to work towards that," said Newman, who suggested that they keep the three rodeos for the next fair and then look and see what's out there for the following year. "When we get new management then we need to go ahead and work and check out this other stuff. Otherwise, if we don't, we're not really going to have a fair next year," he said.