Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Roy Bradbury has been watching over the Kosciusko County Fairgrounds for 52 years.
From one of his first jobs serving as an 18-year-old guard to his current position as a board member, Bradbury, 70, has seen the fairgrounds change, grow and improve.
He and his wife Jean set up a camper at the top of the hill on the west side of the fairgrounds April 1 and decamps around Oct. 1. From this high, shady spot, Bradbury surveys the comings and goings of visitors and events on the 68-acre complex.
"I grew up in Atwood and school would let out early on Friday," he said, "back when the fair was in August, and we all came up here."
Police officer and fair board member Don Snyder asked him to be a guard for the racetrack.
"I've been camping here for 30 years and used to set up where the activity tent is now. I'd bum trailers from people to stay out here. A long time ago a city bus used to make a regular stop through here."
Bradbury served as a volunteer fireman for the Warsaw Fire Department for 28 years.
Doing his part at a WFD fish fry former fair board member John Hall asked if he'd like to organize concessions for the fair board during the fair.
"I gave it a try and kept doing it for 10 years," he said of the concession gig.
The old fire dog rides with an extinguisher in "his" golf cart and installs other extinguishers around the fairgrounds.
Since retiring from Biomet five years ago he's spent six to eight hours a day on the fairgrounds, painting buildings, trimming shrubs, mowing the grass - doing whatever needs done.
Getting ready for the 4-H and community fair is an ongoing process and then it takes another two to three weeks to put it all away.
He points to the new office, near the grandstand as the newest improvement.
"I'd like to see a merchants' building with heating and restrooms. But we're like everybody else, strapped for money."
He gestured toward the log cabin and blacksmith's shop, known as Redbrush Village, saying he thought it would grow into something special in time.
He praised the work board member Dawn Harris has done on the Memorial Gardens across from the animal barns.
He remembers when the horse barn burnt down in 1979, just prior to the fair. The Horses and ponies were brought in each day, judged in classes and taken home each night for a couple of years.
The Sheep Barn was built in 1962; construction of the Shrine Building was in 1963; the Show Barn was built in 1980; the Poultry and Rabbit Barn soon followed and the Goat Barn was completed this year; Bradbury watched it all develop.
He remembers when there were three food stands where the Burket Community food stand is now.
The fairgrounds belongs to the fair members. By paying annual dues members with four tickets to the fair, a vote during the annual meeting to elect fair board members and the opportunity to provide any number of volunteer hours, Bradbury said with a smile.
He is in the middle of a second five-year term on the fair board. Folks going off the board sit out a year before becoming eligible again.
Just beyond Bradbury's campsite is a huge stack of wood. The traditional fire was lit earlier this week and will be kept going until the fair ends July 22.
"It's the 90th year for the fair and since I've been here its come a long way. Things always come together for the fair."
