LEONARDTOWN, Md. — No carnival rides, no giant pumpkins, and no funnel cakes this year. John Richards, president of the St. Mary’s County Fair Association which oversees and maintains the fairgrounds across from Leonardtown High School, has announced that the St. Mary’s County Fair which was scheduled for Sept. 24-27 has been canceled.
“It boils down to the fact that so many of our volunteers fall into the highly at-risk category,” Richards said. “The difficulty for an event of this size would be having to deal with sanitation, keeping everyone far enough apart, wearing face masks…”
While there will not be a fair this year in St. Mary’s, Richards was still able to see some form of a silver lining through it, hoping to find other things that can still happen. Things such as taking the opportunity to continue working on the grounds which haven’t seen much use this year.
“It is possible to still do some 4-H things that aren’t open to the public, or find ways for students to showcase their projects, and maybe even still some form of an auction,” Richards said. “We are hoping to promote some of the agriculture stuff on our website. We have three months to get ready for that and there are still so many unknowns about the virus.”
Though there haven’t been any new official plans made just yet, Richards hopes it will still be successful.
“There’s lots of little things we can still do if we stretch our little minds,” Richards said with a chuckle.
Though Calvert and Charles Counties have yet to make the call on whether or not they will proceed with their fairs as planned, Richards says he has spent the past two days sending the unfortunate news out, and the responses have all been very positive.
“I’m going to miss the people,” Richards said. “I am going to miss seeing our friends, which is a lot of what the fair is all about… and of course seeing all the volunteers who make it happen.”
Read the full press release put out by the board below:
Contact Zach at zach.hill@thebaynet.com
