Students work at State Fair
By Megan Finnerty
Features Editor
When Lisa Yarling
arrived at the Indiana State Fair Grounds July 27, she knew she had
her work cut out for her.
Yarling, a sophomore
in the School of Agriculture, and dozens of other workers from across
the state, several of them Purdue students, were in charge of making
a more than 70-year-old three-story brick building ready to house hundreds
of 4-H projects for fair showing.
The fair started
on Aug. 8 and will run through Saturday.
Layers of dust,
paint chips and dirt covered all surfaces. The building itself was in
disrepair; each building attached on either side had already been condemned.
"Setting up the
building and making sure everything was just perfect before our building
opens was the most stressful part," said Yarling, who's been in 4-H
since she was 11.
"We sweep a lot,"
said Joe Congleton, a 10-year 4-H member who's coming to Purdue next
fall. "The job's pretty fun; the worst part is just the dirt and the
grit."
After mopping, dusting,
sweeping, polishing, decorating and setting up the exhibition areas,
the workers, who range in age from 15 to 22, check in exhibitors, ages
12 to 18, from all over Indiana, make sure the projects get judged properly
and then set them up for public display.
Several Purdue students
work as supervisors in the two exhibition buildings, one which houses
crafts and domestic projects, the other, agriculture and horticulture
projects.
They walk the floors,
guarding exhibits and answering questions posed by the thousands of
people who enter the building each day.
At the end of each
day — just like Disney World — there's a parade and Purdue
students such as Derrick Potts, a senior in the School of Agriculture,
stand on the 4-H float, waving and tossing candy and stickers to the
sunburned, happy families lining the parade route.
Workers rise from
their cots, sleeping bags and beds at the Indiana School of the Deaf,
which is adjacent to the Fairgrounds, around 6:30 a.m. so they can be
at work by 7:30 a.m., where they'll be until about 10 p.m.
"We work a lot of
hours," Yarling said with a laugh.
Congleton said,
" We have to sleep in the preschooler section of the school, so all
the showers come up to our knees."
Living arrangements
aside, Yarling said she's kept coming back to work at the fair for the
last four years because being a part of 4-H helps her connect with people
and make new friends.
She said half of
her agriculture classes at Purdue are filled with students who are or
used to be members of 4-H or Future Farmers of America.
"When we see each
other on campus we can relate to each other in a certain way —
we're all farm kids," she said.
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