On The Record With ... Dave DeYoung

For the 82nd year in a row, the Lake County Fair Association is hosting the annual Lake County Fair – a six-day event full of agricultural showings, live entertainment and a friendly atmosphere that draws people of all ages.

Dave DeYoung, a Millburn resident going into his fifth year as board president for the association, knows what it takes to put on an event of this magnitude. He started showing animals at the county fair as a boy in 1956 and has been involved in some aspect of the fair nearly every year since.

Just two years ago, the Lake County Fair drew more than 157,000 people to its old fairgrounds off Route 45 in Grayslake, the 62-year-old said. Last year, the fair moved to a new location on Peterson Road in Grayslake, and along with the move came new complications.

DeYoung went on the record with Lake County Journal reporter Stephanie N. Lehman to talk about how the fair has progressed.

Lehman: How would you describe a county fair?
DeYoung: I always liken it to a family reunion. In this fast-paced world that we live in with everything, people don't get a chance to see their neighbors, see the people in the next town. And whether they're showing a crop or a vegetable or something in domestic arts or paintings or [things] in the barns, people don't get to see each other, and this is the one week that people all kind of get together and you can count on seeing someone here that you haven't seen all year.
And it's good, wholesome entertainment. The fair board, the directors and the staff just try to bring nothing but quality entertainment and exhibits that are for the whole family. Mom and Dad and the kids, grandparents and all. I think it's just a great big party."

Lehman: What does the board do exactly?
DeYoung: Our job is year-round. We meet twice a month; we're all volunteers. We're not employed by the county or anything like that. We're a 501c3 not-for-profit organization. We donate our time and our efforts here to make this fair possible. And basically ... our duties are to preserve an agricultural fair and put on an event at the annual Lake County Fair ... .

Lehman: Has there been a drop in 4-H and other farming activities? Do people come to fairs for different reasons than they used to?
DeYoung: Definitely. There's definitely a change ... Yes, 4-H and animal exhibits are less. But yet, 4-H has brought the inner city to different 4-H-type projects. Glenview, actually, we have dairy cows coming from Glenview ... they have a farm, and the 4-H kids have dairy cattle, and they bring them to the fair as a project. And then we have what I want to call the city or the inner city groups that have anywhere from electrical projects to plants and gardening and several different things. They're all on exhibit here. So, yes, 4-H has taken a little bit of a turn; the agricultural part of it is low – the cost has a lot to do with it,  raising an animal and having a place to do it – but yet we still have a very good 4-H show here. We're very proud of it ...

Lehman: Do you feel the fair should be more about agriculture? What's the balance, and what should be more important at a county fair?
DeYoung: Well, if you want to distinguish, you have to focus on education, youth and agriculture. Otherwise, you're a festival that every town and county is putting on – you know, food, games, rides and some entertainment. So, I think for it to remain the county fair in the light that we want it portrayed, we have to involve educational value with the family, with youth and the agricultural portion of it.

Lehman: How many people and resources are involved?
DeYoung: There's hundreds. Besides the nine directors, staffs ... you have beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, dairy goat, swine  – then there's junior shows in every one of these departments, too – agricultural product, vegetables, horticultural, floraculture, and there's different divisions of all that, floral arrangements, domestic arts and textiles, junior domestic arts, paintings, photography, crafts, ceramics, culinary arts, and obviously there's so many different divisions in that ... All these departments have a superintendent and an assistant superintendent ... .
We have a lot of volunteers ... and then what I want to call the "friends of the fair." They kind of show up when you need something and help ya. You know, get barns done or lawn mowed or almost anything – they show up.

Lehman: Last year was the first year at the new fairgrounds. How do you think the first year went?
DeYoung: I think, considering everything, it went well. Obviously, we didn't want to break an 81-year tradition and miss a fair. That's kind of tough to do. And we were working very hard, and it wasn't completed, and it rained, and it wasn't the best year. But I still look back at it and said, we had it; we learned from it. We had the fair.

Lehman: How do you know what works and what doesn't work? Do you have surveys for people to fill out?
DeYoung: We don't really have an official survey. A lot of times we'll get a few comments and we listen. A lot of times you can just see things that don't work. They're very obvious. As directors and staff ... they go around and they watch the people. You can watch a crowd and see the reaction or a nonreaction or even no participation at all – nobody's sitting in the seats. We can always pretty much be a judge of, yeah, this is popular and worked. Sometimes you don't know and just kind of have to use your gut feeling that, maybe we should try something different, maybe this is getting a little too old ... . We really try to find different venues and different acts that come in and offer some kind of educational value, not just some static display.

Lehman: What is the biggest improvement that you think you've made last year – the first year at a new fairgrounds – to this year?
DeYoung: Well, we saw a lot of things we did wrong from last year, and we've corrected them. We're a little more established as far as buildings and grounds than we were last year. We've made major strides in alleviating traffic problems by moving some things and giving us more paved parking here instead of having everything out on the midway. Again, in certain areas we've completed things, and we're still not done with everything, but we've completed more things so it's more of a functional fairgrounds. So, we've made improvements. We're not done; we won't be done for 10 years here, but we're making improvements every year, as we did at the other fairgrounds. There was always something changed and built.

Lehman: What still needs to be done? What's one of the big things you want to see happen?
DeYoung: We have a couple more buildings we'd like to see finished, and we'd like to see if we can get funding for permanent grandstands in both the motosports area and the rodeo area. This is our goal. And maybe a little more paving, little more hard surface around ... and landscaping. We're drastically trying to get landscaping finished as soon as we can.

Lehman: About how many people come to the fair every year?
DeYoung: We were 129,[000] at the old fairgrounds in 2006, then 154,[000], 157,[000], then dropped down to 137,[000] last year. But if you can remember the weather, that Saturday night we had a horrendous downpour here, and I think people just didn't bother coming for the big night of entertainment. If you look at our Saturday number, that was [traditionally] a pretty good number because of the entertainment, so I think we could have had 4,[000] to 5,000 people more if the weather had been better that afternoon ... Weather controls the fair an awful lot. Any fair.

Lehman: Do you think the new location had anything to do with the lower numbers?
DeYoung: Absolutely. Absolutely. People couldn't figure out where we were. We tried to GPS and Google it on maps, and it still isn't there after how many years? Two and a half years? ... We've tried and tried and tried ... and it still doesn't show when you put it in there. It's one of the biggest challenges, is knowing where our location is.

Lehman: What is something that people don't understand about the fair?
DeYoung: I don't think [people] understand who's running it, what we're trying to do here for people – bring good, wholesome family entertainment, something for every family member is here. I go back to one of my other statements – for kids, Mom, Dad and grandparents. We really have something for everybody when they come here ... I don't think they really kinda get we're really trying to promote agriculture in the county and how important agriculture is to every member in this county and every county in the world.

So, we try to bring that, and the biggest thing is realizing we're not a county-owned business. We're not owned by the county. We're a group of dedicated, hard-working individuals, along with a lot of members and everybody else that want to put this fair on. Not have to put it on. Want to put it on. And I think that's a big difference.

DeYoung lowdown

Who he is: President of the Lake County Fair Association
Village of residence: Millburn
Family: Wife, Debra; daughter, Jamie; son, Scott; three grandchildren
Favorite fair food: Dutch Annie waffles
Hobbies: Street rods, motorcycles and pheasant hunting
Fair website: www.lcfair.com