Behind the Scenes
“Most of our people are paid,” admits Roy Andrews, “but we have tremendous amount of loyalty from people who come back year after year to help put on the Fair. They’ll take time off from a high-paying job to come and help us put this show on for very little money, and some of them for the week may get 125-135 hours.
“It takes a lot of people behind the scenes to make this work. A good example might be the sweepers, the people who sweep down the grandstand after the horse racing, also sweep it down again after the night show. And they go on to sweep the pulling grandstands down, then they go into the expos and sweep all night. These people are very dedicated people, and most people don’t ever see them. And it is the same with the people who pick the trash up. They start at sometimes four o’clock in the morning depending on what kind of day we had the day before. If we had lots of sunshine, we would have lots of trash. And we have a couple of trucks that we hire with a superior crew, and we pick up about 1500 trash barrels here at night, and we have to have a real special crew to do that who will show up every day and do it rain or shine. And there are rakers, people who rake the grounds every day.”
“The most amazing thing is how clean the fairgrounds are every morning! They weren’t when I first started coming here (about 1918. All that trash was on the ground. I don’t know what time they start cleaning up at night. I think the biggest improvements started when they appointed Roy Andrews General Manager. It’s been on the up ever since.” (Arthur Hill)
“Normally the barrel crew starts at four (sometimes at three),” confirmed Mike Duval. “The sweepers start at five. They have three crews: Sweep One, Sweep Two, Sweep Three. The midway is divided into three parts and each crew is assigned to keep it clean, rake it, and maintain it every day. A crew averages about six men.” He has seen a lot of changes in his eleven years here. “The cleanliness is much better since there are more barrels out there. They have over 1500 barrels.”
Many of these folks eat their meals in the “bunkhouse” which primarily serves the security, museum, and maintenance people. According to the kitchen staff, including Sherry McLeod and Bruce Bartlett, they go through about 1200 pounds of potatoes in eight days…and 100 to 120 pounds of meat a night! Confidentially, we heard that the barrel crew has the best appetite!
Another “behind the scenes” kitchen is the livestock kitchen which primarily feeds the livestock superintendents, judges and so on. Bob Kenerson, who has been in charge for seven years, says, “These are farmers. They want real butter, real milk, eggs. Everything is homemade here.” They feed from 50 to 100 people, and it takes about two weeks before the Fair to get ready.
“Some of these people have been around a long time,” noted Roy Andrews. “There are fellows like Clyde Wiggins that I grew up with. I’ve worked with him a lot of years. Glenn Zaidman from Bridgton who has been one of my key people can get anything done at any time of night from handling a stuck vehicle to sometimes burying an animal in the middle of the night that something has happened to. (I’m the only one who calls him Glenn – everyone else calls him ‘Bear’.)”
“When you’ve got this many animals and people, something happens to them. We have buried animals. We haven’t buried any people yet. We’ve thought about it though!” (Roy Andrews)
Wayne Farrington has been here about as long as Glenn. He is in the shop area that does the detailing for jobs, paperwork for most of the shop crew… “What can I say about him – he deserves recognition along with Glenn – he certainly makes my job easier anyway,” said Andrews.
“And the racetrack crew – I should say something about the people who maintain the racetrack – that’s a very important part,” he continued. “Billy Aube, who is in charge of maintaining the racetrack and the tractor pulling pads, was just a youngster when he started, helping his uncle Don Baker. His help is Al Lovell, a long-timer, and Bob Emery and Billy’s son. They do it without a hitch – make it work rain or shine.”
The “Organic Engineers” also play a very important role. They are an “elite organization” of four (Peter Kane, Irwin Hodsdon, Gary Warren and Jesse Fenderson). They handle about 150 yards of manure a day which translates into 10 or 12 truckloads. We asked them what changes they had seen over the years and got a very cryptic answer…to the point:
“Lot more cattle. Lot more horses. Lot more of the other stuff!”
“We have local fellows here that are partly retired,” continued Roy. “We have Harold Richardson, who is one of our key people here. People who have been around for ten years or more: Milton Palmer, Dick McDaniels, Brian Ames, a key person here. These people can do anything at any time of day or night and there are many more, a lot of key people. It’s not fair just to name a few.
“In the building over the years I’ve had a lot of senior citizen builders. Some of them have been old retired farmers who did a great job. I remember one year I had five real good senior citizens plus a few younger fellows. My grandfather, Arthur Hill, Pete Gains, and Archie Webster, and Harold Gains, Buster Smith, and Wes Buswell, and those fellows, all on one crew one year. Most of them are all gone now. We had one fellow, Sumner Durgin, who worked here at the Fair, and he lived to be a real old man. He worked 72 consecutive years during the Fair, and that’s a record I don’t believe anybody else has set in this part of the world! So there are a tremendous lot of people who do whatever they have to do to make it work. It may not be their department, but they will help out in any way they can.”
“Fryeburg Fair is known worldwide, really. I don’t care where you go, you mention Fryeburg Fair and somebody knows about it. It’s just really a pleasure to be involved, not only to participate but to be involved with the management of the Fair and take part in it. I thoroughly enjoy it and look forward to it every year.” (Robert Young)