County fair captures summer nostalgia

The gold­en fried Oreos, the sweet lemon­ade, the flash­ing glow of neon. These are all things that remind me of one place: the coun­ty fair. 

Summer in Clark County is rem­i­nis­cent of many things, like con­den­sa­tion dew­ing on cold Ale‑8 bot­tles or pool days accom­pa­nied by a din­ner on the grill. But the fair evokes nos­tal­gia like noth­ing else. 

There’s a cer­tain charm that comes with hav­ing your hand stamped at admis­sions to ride a Ferris wheel erect­ed just for this one week in the sum­mer. It’s almost excit­ing not know­ing if the ride will break down halfway through your ven­ture due to its rushed construction. 

This year, I found myself enjoy­ing aspects of the fair I had yet to explore in the past. From goat shows to the demo­li­tion der­by, I was able to cross some events off my fair buck­et list. 

One thing I love about the fair is there is some­thing dif­fer­ent going on every night. From cer­tain 4‑H events hap­pen­ing on Monday to the pageant occur­ring on Tuesday, the fair makes way for all sorts of peo­ple to join in the fun. 

Now, this fair is not like the ones you see in movies; it’s small­er, its quaint­ness reflec­tive of Winchester. There may not be cher­ished rides like a fun house or a drop tower. 

However, what we may lack in engi­neer­ing genius, our town def­i­nite­ly makes up for in spir­it. If you want to be tru­ly enter­tained, observe the town of Winchester wit­ness­ing cars crash­ing into each oth­er, demo­li­tion der­by style. 

I got to expe­ri­ence peo­ple cheer­ing and yelling, foot­long corn­dogs in hand, as met­al scraped met­al and vehi­cles became totaled. However, it was total­ly fun to be sit­ting on the grassy hill over­look­ing a dirt are­na and see Winchester’s ver­sion of a glad­i­a­tor fight. 

As much as I love the brutish nature of crash­ing cars into one anoth­er, the best part of the fair by far is the food. Food deep-fried and smoth­ered in pow­dered sug­ar, almost mak­ing it inedible. 

And the mag­num opus of fair food? Fried Oreos. Those deli­cious choco­late crème cook­ies dipped in thick bat­ter and fried to gold­en per­fec­tion can make just about anyone’s mouth water. 

I made the mis­take of enjoy­ing my Oreos while going through a cer­tain zom­bie-themed ride. Don’t get me wrong, the “ride” wasn’t scary, but rather so dis­ap­point­ing it almost made me lose my appetite. 

From the out­side, I was expect­ing this to be a fun house sort of con­trap­tion, with twists, turns, and gas await­ing me. Instead, what I expe­ri­enced was a sin­gle nar­row hall­way that was shroud­ed in dark­ness and show­cased exposed infrastructure. 

Despite this dis­ap­point­ing “ride,” I look for­ward to the Clark County Fair every sum­mer, even if just for the demo­li­tion der­by and the fried Oreos.