Nebraska State Board holds meeting concerning preparations for the state fair

The Nebraska State Fair will be held August 22 to September 1 in 2014. The Nebraska State Board met in Kimball on Friday June 6 at the 4-H building. The board discussed the current state of all the committees working on making the upcoming fair in Grand Island a success.

Kathleen Lodl, in charge of the Nebraska Agricultural Experience (NAE) at the upcoming fair, gave a presentation concerning the current state of the NAE. Giant corn stalks and other giant sized crops are being fabricated for the decoration of the building in which the NAE will be located. These are called commodity sculptures and will have information on the commodity in the sculpture in order to provide people with more information pertaining to them.

A large map of Nebraska is also in the process of being made, a climbable map. It will be on the ground so that people can walk on the map. The map will be made according to Nebraska’s features, so, instead of just being flat, the map will incline and decline based on Nebraska’s different altitudes and topography. There will also be spots on the map that, when stepped on, activate a video that will play on the wall in front of the map. These videos that will play will be informational about the area that has been stepped on, on the map. There is also a time lapse of the rivers that run through the state and those will play as well.

There will also be an interactive house. This house will explain certain statistics about Nebraska homes and how they are affected in Nebraska. They will touch on hunger and are trying to make people aware that there is currently no county in Nebraska that is not affected by hunger. An interactive dining room table in the house will have a place to click on a specific county and learn the amount of people who are food scarce, don‘t have enough food.

The board expressed explicit interest in being an educational experience as well as fun entertainment for the whole family. They talked about wanting to be positive that the information provided would be interesting to children and adults alike. Several of the District Members of the board showed interest in this.

“We’re making sure that we are presenting the information in a way that will be easily understood by children, however, not too simplified that adults are dismissive of the information. Our demographic starts at the fourth grade level,” Lodl said.

Concerning funding, the NAE group are feeling confident because they have reached the point where sponsors are finding them instead of them having to take the time to really seek out sponsors. Lodl expressed in her presentation that a lot of the sponsors are not just interested in sponsoring to flash their name around. One of the confirmed sponsors is Reinke. Other sponsors, while active, have not been confirmed to be publicly acknowledged.

“These sponsors are in this because they really want to educate people about agriculture, which is what we are trying to do through this experience as well,” Lodl said.

The Game and Parks Commission explained next that they are in good shape for indoor and outdoor attractions. There will be an air gun shooting range and an archery shooting range, which will both be indoors. There will be a 6,500 gallon mobile aquarium as well as an indoor waterfall and a meandering stream. Children have activities to participate in, including an Angry Birds toss. Outside will have a pollinator garden, large dirt mound with pvc tunnels running through it, climbing logs, fire pit, play cabin, grass mounds with slides built into it, sand area, concrete climbing turtles and birds. There will be no outside water streams, wading pools, or other water features.

Opening ceremonies will begin at 10 a.m. on August 22, 2014. This is when all the exhibits and attractions will be open and seen for the first time. The Gate admission is free until noon on opening day. County fair day is August 30, it is a day that allows county fairs to showcase themselves and drum up interest in what they have to offer their communities as well as visitors. Several senators and other Nebraska State officials will be sent a save the date and invited to the opening ceremonies. The Nebraska State Fair will also be honoring Veterans on Veterans Day with free admission all day to service man and women with proper identification.

There are several other activities being offered concerning agriculture, demonstrations, and Nebraska History. The Nebraska Sate Fair Board will hold four more meetings before the opening of the state fair. One meeting will be held on July 11, and two meetings will be held on August 9. All meetings will be held in Grand Island, Nebraska. The final meeting of the Nebraska State Fair Board will be held on August 22, opening day of the fair.