KYLE MURPHYStaff Writer

It’s that time of year again when the Coffee County Fair takes up residency in the fields in Manchester for both family friendly entertainment and a celebration of agriculture. Whether it’s being a tradition in the county for the last 166 years to the flashing lights and rides to the plentiful options of food vendors and attractions, there is something about the fair that makes someone stop by at least once.

For myself, thinking about the county fair brings me back to my elementary school days where we would count down the days until Fair Day, as that meant we didn’t have school that Friday and could go to the fair to get on the rides, win prizes and eating some delicious fair food. During this time, our elementary classes would participate in various activities and crafts in order to put them in the annual contests at the fair, and see if we walk away with either first, second or third place ribbons.

Not to brag, but I walked away with a few ribbons for my various arts and crafts, but not enough to hold four binders of ribbons like my grandpa Carl.

My grandpa was a man who enjoyed working with his hands, whether it was cooking, fishing, gardening, wood construction and so on, and he was not bashful in showing off his efforts. I can’t exactly recall what made him decide to take his side hobbies and put them on display at the Coffee County Fair, but when he started in 2001, he walked away with a first and third place ribbon. Hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?

Anyways, he would return to the fair in 2005 with more of his wares, thus beginning a five-year run of putting in submissions the competitions ranging from wood construction, jams, jellies and preserves, vegetables, watermelons, pumpkins (which got him featured in the Manchester Times as the photo shows), and all kinds of other gardening categories. To say he was proud of his work is putting it lightly, I mean I don’t blame him. It takes a lot of work grow all those vegetables.

It was a usual sight of when we visited him and Grandma that he would be in his garden, which ran alongside his barn, growing a variety of vegetables for himself and the family to enjoy. A favorite amongst the grandchildren was his watermelon. With this knowledge, he decided to have fun with us by asking us a simple question.

“Who wants watermelon?”

“We do! We do!”

“…too bad, I don’t have any.”

The amount of times we fell for this was one too many. And of course when he would ask us the same question in later visits and we naturally responded with, “No, we know this is a trick!”

Without missing a beat, he would present the watermelon and say, “Too bad.”

This was one of the many examples of Grandpa causing trust issues with his grandkids, and he loved every second of it. We caught on over time but it didn’t stop him from trying.

Anyways, another common sight was whenever someone new to the family came over to their house for family gatherings, Grandpa would walk away for a minute and bring out his fair ribbon binders to show them. It was always a sight to see when he would sit them down and go over each page to tell them about each vegetable he grew that year. Going through his binders, he amassed a total of 76 ribbons, which included 47 first place ribbons, 11 second place ribbons, 17 third place ribbons and one Best in Show ribbon. Not bad old man.

However, he started to slow down after 2009 fair due to being diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also known as COPD. COPD really hindered his everyday life as he could no longer do all the things he loved to do without having to stop and catch his breathe. But, like many men of his generation, he was stubborn and quite frankly didn’t have the patience to let COPD slow him down. After a brief hiatus, he was able to go back to the fair in 2013 and he walked away with a ribbon in each placing. Again, not bad old man.

But that would be the last time he would submit entries to the fair, as well as being able to tend to his large garden where he grew his ribbon winning vegetables. He still whipped out his fair binders once in a while to show all new members of the family the fruits of his labor when he wasn’t working on his multiple volumes of recipes he collected online, which is putting it lightly but he loved doing it.

He eventually passed away in June 2022 at the age of 83. As I walked around the fair this past week, it really made me think of him and those fair binders. I think it’s safe to say going forward, the fair will always make me think of my grandpa. Because I mean seriously, check out the size of that pumpkin!