Letter to the Editor: Appreciation for the Allamakee County Fair Board

To the Editor:

I don’t think you hear this often enough, so I want to say “Thank You.” Thank you for donating your time to make the Allamakee County Fair as great as it is each year. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend meetings and conferences, for spending weeknights and weekends completing fairground maintenance and beautification projects, and for taking your own vacation time from work to make fair week run so smoothly.

I think the Allamakee County Fair is amazing, but the hardworking people behind the scenes are what amaze me the most.

Each member of the board brings so much to the table, and the community is so thankful for your skills. From the board member who is mechanically inclined to the board member who takes care of the phone calls and paperwork, without you our fair would not be the amazing community event that it is.

Thank you for having a heart for service, and choosing to make the fair your priority so that our community can enjoy coming together. Thank you for spending your fair days doing a job so many do not wish to do, so that the rest of us can come and have fun.

Thank you for doing what is most often a thankless job. Thank you for listening to those who choose to complain first before volunteering, for making the tough decisions that mean taking a verbal beating. Thank you for putting the community’s safety first when scary weather situations arise. I know these decisions don’t come easy, and you as a board do not deserve to be spoken down to as so many choose to do.

And I can’t forget the families behind the Fair Board. To all the husbands and wives, sons and daughters who share their loved ones with us during this busy week, thank you. Thank you for being there for them, helping them with their other commitments and for helping to pick up the slack at home. While the rest of us are enjoying the fair as couples or a family, you are watching your loved one work hard for our community, and because of that, we thank you.

To all those who are so negative about the Allamakee County Fair, I leave you with this: “If you don’t contribute, don’t complain.”

Aubrie Lenze
Waukon