Sean,
You are now 40 days from us. I have been working at the Utah State Fair long hours for the last few days, but as I was working at the Utah's own Taste of Utah event today, I thought I needed to write why the fair matters to me, why I come back every year, and why it is important to me that there is a fair every year.
Does the Utah State Fair matter?
A long time ago, the state fair was a place to celebrate the
accomplishments of all of us together. It was a place to showcase new and
exciting things, the next thing that would revolutionize the world, or change
the face of your home forever. It was the place where bragging rights were won
or lost for the rest of the year. “You may have won the blue ribbon at the
county fair Martha, but I won the blue ribbon at the State fair!” The county fair was a show; the state fair
was the BIG show.
Before we were so connected by the internet and cell phones,
the state fair was a place for all of us to come together and to truly see the
best the state has to offer. The smell of roasted sweet corn and the sounds of
goats and cows filled the brisk evening air. One could ask in the world where
everything is digital and we don’t do anything without our cell phones, or
social media, do we need a state fair anymore? But the truth is in this day and
age, when we are so connected online, we need real interaction now more than we
ever have.
When a 1st grader has never seen a cow or a
litter of piglets except on TV or in a book, we need a state fair. It is a nod
to our agricultural roots, and a reason to come together no matter where in the
state we come from. As a state, our backgrounds may divide us by city or county,
but at the state fair we are one common people, one common state. With as much
as divides us, the state fair unites us. There are hundreds of celebrations,
fairs and shows throughout the year, but only one that celebrates our state and
who we are as a common people and that, that alone is worth saving.
It is worth saving not just for ourselves but for the
generations who will come after us. It is the heritage of our state we are preserving
and the future of our state that we are promoting. A cell phone will never give
you the experience riding a ride will, or winning a prize for your sweetheart,
or biting into a freshly dipped corn dog, or replace the look on a toddlers face
their first time seeing a goat, or a pig, or a sheep, or a cow in person. (Or
animal)
The state fair matters because we need to come together to
remember where we came from, and where we are capable of going if we work
together to preserve it. The state fair
is not another show, it is a piece of our living legacy handed to us from the
generations who preceded us, and one we can give to all of the generations who
will come after us.
-Jordan R Hinckley
(-Dad)
