Fair Searching for Honey of a Theme
By Diane Booth Conway,
Merced County Fair Communications & Marketing Director

Bees will be the stars of the show at the 2009 Merced County Fair.

The Merced County Fair is launching its annual theme contest for the 2009 Fair and bees will be the theme of the 118th annual event. The deadline to submit theme suggestions is Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008 at 5 p.m. The 2008 fair just ended, but planning for the 2009 fair has already begun, so the new theme must be selected soon. 

The winner of the contest will receive $100 and two season passes to the fair. The second- and third-place entries will each be awarded a pair of season passes to the six-day event, July 21-26, 2009. The contest is for Merced County residents only.

“We bee-lieve this contest will create a lot of buzz in the community,” said Robin Hauck, the fair's CEO. “This is a fun way to get involved in the fair, so get busy like a bee and share your sweetest theme ideas with us.”

Bees are a big deal in Merced County. We’ve got a bee industry that takes care of pollination for fruits, nuts and other crops including alfalfa, and also provides honey, beeswax, and queen bees. We grow a lot of food here and about one-third of human food requires pollination – plants can’t grow without it. So we think it’s time to celebrate bees and give them some time in the spotlight for all that they do.

The first-place theme will be used as the fair's theme. Once the winning theme is selected, there will be a contest to find a logo design to illustrate the theme. Each year the theme and logo appear on billboards, T-shirts, buttons, advertising, posters, programs, banners and on the fair's website to promote the fair.

To enter the competition, print or type the entries on one piece of paper. Each entry must be five words or less and a maximum of eight entries per person can be submitted. No entries will be accepted that are the same or similar to other trademarked slogans.

Email ideas to Info@MercedCountyFair.com or entries may be delivered to the fairgrounds office, 900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, or mailed to the Merced County Fair, 900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Merced, 95341. Submissions should include the entrant's name, address and telephone number. Information about the slogan competition will be available at the fair's award-winning website, www.MercedCountyFair.com

For more information, call the fair office at 722-1507.

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