By Michael Ryan
CAIRO - Nobody is waiting for the future to get here to secure the presence and viability of the Greene County Youth Fair as well as the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene counties.
Greene County legislature members were in attendance at the recent 70th anniversary of the Youth Fair, held in late July and still reverberating.
They were joined by State Senator Michelle Hinchey and Assemblyman Chris Tague, providing continuing support for the agriculture-based celebration, the last free festival of its kind in New York.
Children, keeping with a long tradition, “showed” their goats, cows and chickens, hoping to win coveted Blue Ribbons.
Awards were presented by the Greene County Youth Advisory Board to youngsters from throughout the county, identified as “caring, dedicated individuals whose efforts and accomplishments should be recognized.”
While all that and more was unfolding, time was taken to unofficially break ground on a new storage facility for the Youth Fair and fatten the piggy bank of the combined Cooperative Extension services.
Greene County lawmakers, last month, approved $225,0000 for the construction of a Youth Fair “Butler Building.”
It is expected official groundbreaking will take place next spring at Angelo Canna Park in Cairo, current site of the Youth Fair.
County lawmakers have a lengthy history of Youth Fair financial support, annually setting aside thousands of dollars for operational costs.
Lawmaker Harry Lennon (District 8, Cairo) is particularly committed to the event, located in his home district and hometown, consistently urging the legislature to keep pace with necessary increases.
“The Youth Fair is and always has been important to Greene County,” Lennon says, noting improvements have recently been made to the electrical system and road paving at the Park.
“At the end of the day, this is about children,” Lennon says, with literally generations of families taking part over the past seven decades.
This year, the great-grandsons of Fair founder Alfred Partridge were in the makeshift barnyards set up on the grounds of the Park, mingling with kindred spirits from the farming community.
The planned Butler Building will be built on a small hill near an existing structure that hosts the Youth Fair’s yearly craft exhibit.
“It will allow the organizers to consolidate equipment and materials now spread out over 27 areas,” county administrator Shaun Groden says.
The legislative resolution indicates $175,000 of the allotted expenditure will come from nickel returns on bottle deposits at county waste transfer stations with $50,000 from an existing infrastructure account.
And on the subject of money, Senator Hinchey was on hand, as usual, for Youth Fair Opening Day ceremonies, carrying a large check for the combined Cornell Cooperative Extension agencies.
Hinchey’s check was huge in more ways than one, being vastly over-sized for ceremonial presentation and containing $200,000 in support of the Rasmussen Outdoor Classroom.
The Outdoor Classroom will be constructed within the 142-acre “Siuslaw Model Forest” at the Agroforestry Resource Center in Acra.
It is named in honor of former and highly respected Greene County Soil & Water Conservation District board of directors chairman Eric Rasmussen.
“He is the reason we are here today,” Hinchey said of Rasmussen, unveiling the big check, noting Rasmussen’s lengthy service.
“Yes, I am the money today, but Cooperative Extension is the stewards and Eric’s dedication over the years is what made this happen,” Hinchey said.
The Outdoor Classroom will facilitate year-round educational programming for 4-H, Master Gardeners, Master Forest Owners, and the broader community, promoting place-based learning.
Programming will focus on agroforestry, climate resilience and mitigation strategies, and specialty crops like shitake mushrooms and ginseng which thrive in woodland environments.
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