As summer draws to an end and stores begin their back-to-school sales, I begin to feel a stirring inside me that I can’t quite explain. But one pass by the fairgrounds on 264 reveals the source of my rising excitement — it’s fair time again!

Fairs like Pitt County’s provide an opportunity for all of us to celebrate our rural heritage. It’s also a place that we can all enjoy the sights, scents and sounds of our childhood. In fact, county fairs always mean the most to our children. For them, the fair is a chance to show off animals and produce and other projects that they have spent months grooming, training, growing and creating. Even more so, the fair gives them a chance to spend some quality time with friends and family in a fun and entertaining setting.

The fair is the smell of funnel cakes and Italian sausages hovering over the midway. It’s the screams coming from the wild rides. It’s the inability to walk straight after a spin on the Scrambler. It’s the tug on a parent’s arm when their 3-year-old want to go here, here, and here. It’s the boyfriend and girlfriend walking arm-in-arm, stuffed animal in tow. It’s smiles of young children taking a midway ride for the first time. It’s midway games that seemingly always get the better of the customers. It’s the bumper cars and Ferris wheels, cotton candy and kernel corn. It’s a platform for face-to-face social contact where old friends meet on the midway by plan or by chance to catch up with one another. It’s where new friends are made and where teens escape the ethereal world of texting and Facebook to talk and laugh in the true old-fashioned, face-to-face way. Whatever images “the county fair” conjures in your mind, you can find them realized at the Pitt County Fair in October!

Gas prices are high and the cost of living keeps rising. Families are in dire need of inexpensive entertainment that won’t put a dent in the wallet or lead them into foreclosure. And while it may not be a trip to Disneyland or that week-long Caribbean cruise you’ve always dreamed of, the Pitt County fair offers the perfect opportunity for children of all ages (yes, even parents can be kids again!) to have fun on the midway, share laughs and have a good time with their neighbors. You may leave with a bellyache, but you’ll almost certainly have a smile on your face!

So plan your “Staycation” for the first week in October because “It’s Fair Time Again!”

We look forward to seeing you there!

Paige Laughinghouse, Fair Ambassador
Pitt County American Legion Agricultural Fair
Celebrating 91 Years