This is not your grandfather’s county fair, where the only concern was whether your corn dog was fully cooked.

These days, with news about gun violence and child abductions, organizers of the Kosciusko County Community 4-H Fair have embraced numerous steps to keep the public safe.

A lot of those moves are ones visitors might not even realize, including surveillance cameras and plainclothes police officers.

Twenty years ago, the fair occasionally struggled with fights and inebriated visitors, but circumstances improved after officials decided to begin paying for police protection, said Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Lt. Don Wiesehan, who has overseen security for the fair since about 1998.

These days, officials say they rarely have problems, and the biggest concern is finding children who walk away from family members. Last year, they had several incidents. In one recent year, a young girl wandered away three times, said Fair Board President Kevin Harris.



On The Lookout

Numerous security steps have been taken over the years.

The fairgrounds banned all firearms about four years ago, and the only exception is for law enforcement. Those who are seen carrying weapons are asked to take them back to their vehicle or leave, Harris said.

Surveillance cameras are also used in parts of the 56-acre fairgrounds, but Harris – for security reasons – declined to say how many are used or where they are.

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During the fair, uniformed officers are spread around the fairgrounds and at specific events in the grandstand and are always on the lookout for suspicious activities.

“In this day and age, we’re always looking for things,” Wiesehan said.

When a child comes up missing, parents are urged to notify the fair office, police or fair officials quickly.

Personnel at the three main gates are immediately notified and given descriptions. Authorities then begin communicating through text and hand-held radios, and descriptions of the missing child are often announced on the fairgrounds’ public address system.

Police then take control of the exits and begin looking for any children matching the description. If they see a child matching the description, officers look into the circumstances further.

Last year, security helped find several missing kids who wandered away. As of this morning, there had been no such incidents during fair week, according to a spokesperson at the fair office.

This year, the fair began charging admission beginning each day at 9 a.m. The move was made in part to collect more revenue, but also to keep parents from dropping off children in the morning for the entire day.

The change, said Jeannette Wood, general manager at the fairgrounds, has likely helped curb some problems.



24-Hour Security

Security efforts are an “around the clock operation” that continue after the fairgrounds closes each night.

Police watch the exits and rove the fairgrounds overnight with a specific focus on the campground areas where 4-H’ers and their family as well as midway workers stay.

On top of that, representatives of each animal barn stay overnight to make sure “the animals don’t get out and make sure unwanted people don’t get in,” Harris said.

What makes it easier, in some ways, is that the fair is also a family event for many police, including Wiesehan, whose family has been entrenched in 4-H for years.

“The good thing is we have a lot of law enforcement officers – county, city and even state police who have children in 4-H, so they also stay on the grounds,” Wiesehan said.