{"id":17256,"date":"2015-09-30T14:33:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T18:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=17256"},"modified":"2015-10-02T08:43:06","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T12:43:06","slug":"unionville-community-fair-farm-show-harvests-the-fun-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=17256","title":{"rendered":"Unionville Community Fair & Farm Show \u2018Harvests the Fun\u2019 this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giddyap!..Rodeo, contests, food, livestock, entertainment & more…<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Kim Chiomento,<\/strong> <\/span>News Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

EAST MARLBOROUGH\u00a0\u2013 The first weekend of October is here, and that means it\u2019s time for the 91st annual Unionville Community Fair and Farm Show.\u00a0 The historic fair has grown from its modest 1924 \u2018corn show\u2019 roots to the largest display of community agricultural, home products, handcrafts and arts in Chester County today. This year\u2019s show \u201cHarvesting the Fun\u201d kicks-off Friday, and summarizes just what attendees, exhibitors and contestants can expect from the three day action-packed fair.\"pics_rt_contests\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With agriculture and tourism remaining as \u00a0top industries in Pennsylvania, \u00a0Liz Brown, who assists\u00a0the fair with publicity and communications efforts says, \u201cThe fair is simply the fabric of the Unionville community.\u00a0 It keeps agriculture alive, showcases home crafts and art and is an important part of both our history and life as we know it here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many may not realize that the fair\u00a0is run by volunteers and\u00a0proceeds are donated to local charities. This year, Po-Mar-Lin and Longwood fire companies, along with Kennett Area Community Service (which operates the highly utilized Kennett Food Cupboard), have all been named beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

The 2015\u00a0fair is being dedicated to long-time friend and volunteer, Dave Solamaki.\u00a0 Solamaki is credited for his many hours tabulating contest entry results and worked tirelessly to streamline the process via laptops donated by Exelon Corporation.<\/p>\n

Prior to the donation (and the commonplace home computers we know today), Solamaki used to travel to Hewlett-Packard to manually enter the fair data. \u00a0He still remains involved with all processes related to fair award calculations. \u00a0Solamaki\u00a0also serves on the Board of Directors for United Way of Southern Chester County, volunteers at the polls in East Marlborough Township, is a member of the hand bell choir of West Chester’s Calvary Lutheran Church and serves as a judge in the DE FIRST Lego League competition.<\/p>\n

The fair, while a completely separate entity, has a long-standing relationship with the Unionville Chadds Ford School District (UCFSD).\u00a0 In its earliest days, school board members and teachers were a large part of the volunteer team that made the fair happen. Although the old tradition of closing UCFSD schools for the fair ended a few years back when the fair moved down the street from the high school to the site of the Willowdale Steeplechase,\u00a0its students still can be seen receiving educational tours of various exhibits.\u00a0 And, many of the exhibits and contests still require participants to reside within the UCFSD boundary.<\/p>\n

One of the most popular fair events is Saturday evening\u2019s Willowdale Pro Rodeo.\u00a0 Community members can still purchase their tickets online through Friday, October 2nd<\/sup> – 5 PM via the following link: http:\/\/www.ucfairinc.org\/rodeo.html<\/a>\u00a0 Following the close of online sales, rodeo tickets may be purchased at the fair\u2019s information booth.\u00a0Other popular events are the \u201cGive and Take Jugglers (Saturday, 2- 4 PM) and The Little Circus (Sunday, 1 PM.)<\/p>\n

\"2014queen\"<\/a>

Left to right:Ellen Dunbar, 2014 Queen Alternate; Carly Rechenberg, 2014 Queen; Shannon White, 2014 Princess, and SaraTaylor, Princess Alternate<\/p><\/div>\n

The Unionville Community Fair Queen pageant is a time honored\u00a0tradition, and also one that adheres to the requirement that contestants reside within the UCFSD.\u00a0 It has evolved from a traditional beauty and popularity contest to a more sophisticated challenge that showcases philanthropy, leadership, academics, personal accomplishments, communications and presentation skills, along with\u00a0poise. \u00a0The 2015 queen and court are as follows: \u00a0Shannon White: fair queen,\u00a0Clarisse Cofrancesco: \u00a0queen alternate,\u00a0Lexus McKinney: fair princess,\u00a0Lauren Chamberlain: princess\u00a0alternate.<\/p>\n

According to the fair\u2019s website, \u201cFair Queen and her Court share a unique opportunity to promote our Fair and agriculture as well as the chance to experience personal growth and development.\u00a0 The Queen Pageant helps young women build confidence in their talent, learn poise in their presentation, increase pride in their accomplishments and enhance communication skills.\u201d\u00a0 The pageant winner receives a $500 scholarship\"Rodeo%202013%20Home\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are so many fun fair happenings from Friday through Sunday, we encourage our readers to click on the following link where the fair\u2019s bountiful schedule of events can be found: http:\/\/www.ucfairinc.org\/fair_schedule.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giddyap!..Rodeo, contests, food, livestock, entertainment & more… By Kim Chiomento, News Editor, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH\u00a0\u2013 The first weekend of October is here, and that means it\u2019s time for the 91st annual Unionville Community Fair and Farm Show.\u00a0 The historic fair has grown from its modest 1924 \u2018corn show\u2019 roots to the largest display of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,25,4],"tags":[6636],"class_list":["post-17256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-community","category-featured","tag-unionville-community-fair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17256"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17276,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17256\/revisions\/17276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}