Reserve Now For Free Fair Tours for Kids
By Diane Booth Conway,
Merced County Fair Communications & Marketing Director

   It’s a really cool field trip that gives kids an exclusive tour of the 2008 Merced County Fair.
   Hands-on Ag education is the goal of a special one-day only event at the 2008 Merced County Fair. The fair is offering special tours of exhibit buildings and the Old MacDonald’s Farm for children’s groups from area schools, Scouting organizations and summer recreation programs.
   The fair is July 15-20 and reservations for the free tours are available now for Thursday, July 17. The tours, which last about an hour, are offered from 9 a.m. to noon. The tours are conducted before the fairgrounds opens to the general public, so kids get a chance to experience the farm and exhibit buildings when it’s not so crowded.
   The fair's theme is “Come Rock With The Flock,” and many of the exhibits will feature sheep, one of the county’s top agricultural products. There will be a display of sheep’s wool and sheep by-products including lanolin, made from sheep’s wool, which is used in soaps and toiletries, as well as sheep horns, hooves and bone, which are made into items including piano keys, bone china and gelatin desserts.
   Live sheep and other wool-bearing animals including llamas, camels and alpacas will be at the farm in a display called “Wooly and Wild.” Special added attractions planned just for tour participants will be a sheep shearing demonstration and a female sheep (ewe) getting ready to give birth to a lamb at Old MacDonald’s Farm, said Russ Hill, 4-H Program Representative.
   “4-H youth are putting together the educational displays this year at Old MacDonald’s Farm,” said Hill. He and Stephanie Clendenin are overseeing 4-H members’ work on the 16,000-square-foot hands-on Ag literacy display that has won state and national awards from both educational institutions and the fair industry.
   The exhibit offers lots of sights, sounds and hands-on activities that appeal to children of all ages. This year’s tour highlights at the farm will include a cow ready to give birth in the Moo-ternity Ward, a new video showing the cow’s birthing process, a visit to the poultry corner with incubators hatching chicks and a birthing area for pigs. There will be an active beehive with a microscope nearby to check out the colony’s activities.
   Teachers, Scouting and recreation leaders supervising the children's groups on the tours will receive educational packets that will help reinforce what the children see and learn about at the fair, Hill said.
   One of the tour’s highlights will be a flock of sawhorse “sheep” and “clothespin sheep” art projects created by local school children that will be displayed in the Merced Animal Medical Center Ag Building.
   The behind-the-scenes tours give children and youth the opportunity to discover lots of fun hands-on activities they’re allowed to touch and they can search for their arts and crafts entries on display.
   The tours are a fair tradition and are very popular, so fair officials recommend calling now to book a time. To schedule a tour or for more information, call 722-1507 or email to Info@MercedCountyFair.com or fax at 722-3773. Visit the Merced County Fair’s award-winning web site, www.MercedCountyFair.com

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