Make a visit to the Morgan County Fair
An old farmer adage goes something like, “If you want fair, it’s once a year in late July at the fairgrounds.”
That’s right, the Morgan County Fair is in full swing at the County Fairgrounds in Brush. We encourage everyone to make time to attend in support of 4-H, FFA and other participants.
If you’ve never taken in any events at the fair, we encourage you to take the time to do so this year. If you have attended in past years, we invite you to come back.
What you’ll see is the future of agriculture. You’ll see children of all ages raising livestock, and it’s worth considering not just their efforts in the moment of this livestock exhibition, but rather the work each went to in order to reach this moment. It’s that daily work that turns a good prospect into a champion, and an interest into a passion.
Poultry and rabbit shows opened the livestock portion of the fair Friday. The goat and sheep shows followed Saturday and Sunday. Swine will be exhibited Monday. Market beef is exhibited Tuesday, with dairy cattle Wednesday. It all culminates Thursday with the Junior Livestock Sale of Champions at 5:30 p.m.
Other exhibitors have or will participate in equine, home economics projects, horticulture, floriculture, field and garden crops, and more than could be mentioned in this space.
If you live in a city home in Brush, Fort Morgan, Log Lane Village or Wiggins and maybe you’ve never heard Chris LeDoux sing about a county fair or don’t even own a pair of Justin cowboy boots, this is your chance to see the economic driver of Morgan County and Colorado: agriculture. No matter what you’ve heard in town, it’s agriculture that makes this county go. It is farmers and ranchers that supply our beef to Cargill, milk to Leprino, sugar beets to Western Sugar and lamb to Colorado Lamb Processors, much of which begins on Morgan County farms and ranches. That’s not to mention Brush Meat Processors, a Morgan County bison processor.
The state ranks third in sheep and lamb production, 10th in cattle, 15th in milk and swine, and 22nd in poultry. Morgan County ranks among the top agriculture production counties in Colorado.
This is not easy work. Perhaps, you’ve seen a combine in a crop in the late hours of the night and there again in the wee hours of the morning. Among those exhibiting in the Morgan County Fair will be many who will continue that tradition. Those who, as Paul Harvey said, get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.
Farming and ranching feeds the world and some of the youth you’ll see are the next generation of our food security. Stop and talk with them about their project in the county fair.
While you’re at the fair, please consider the tireless work of the fair board and extension staff, along with the many superintendents who make the fair possible. And thank a donor for the resources they provide to close the show at the junior livestock sale.
We invite you to take a look at the full fair schedule and plan a trip to the Morgan County Fairgrounds.