From my first county fair in 1979 to our 30th fair issue

By John Toth

The Bulletin

Since the Brazoria County Fair is going on, it’s just appropriate that I write about my experience with county fairs.

As most of my regular readers know, I was not raised in a country setting, but it didn’t take long for me to learn about county fairs. I have only been to two - the one here and the one in Bay City, where I was a cub reporter in 1979.

Cub means right out of college and lucky enough to find a low-paying job at a daily newspaper. I drove a long way to get a reporting job at the Bay City Tribune. Back in those days, they were printing six times a week.

A few months into the job, the city editor came and dropped a box full of paper on my desk.

We were working out of a metal building on Hwy. 35. This was way before they moved into the building by the high school.

“You are the newest staffer, so you get to put together our fair section,” he said. I could tell that he didn’t want to do it, and I had no say in the matter. He knew I had editorial and layout experience in college.

That was my first fair section. I learned fast and just enough to pull the section together.

I dealt with a bunch of really nice people who helped me do it, and in a couple of weeks, it was ready to go. It was nice to get back to the composing and layout part of the business.

After that, I often “subbed” on the city desk at the Tribune whenever the boss wasn’t there. I left a year later to work at the Victoria Advocate, where I didn’t do any county fair writing and seldom worked on the copy desk.

Then I heard of a feature-writing job opening up at the Brazosport Facts, applied and got it. The pay was still lousy, but it was closer to the Houston market, where I wanted to wind up.

My first fair coverage here came in 1982, when I did a story on the country-western singer, Sylvia, who had the big hit, “Nobody,” at the time. I went to interview her on the second floor of the administration building at the fairgrounds.

Her full name is Sylvia Jane Kirby, and she went on to win an Academy of Country Music award for Female Artist of the Year. She was also nominated for a Grammy. Before all that happened, though, this city boy was trying to ask relevant-enough questions to write a story. Sylvia took it easy on me by answering at length. I had plenty to write about.

I hung around the fairgrounds with a friend for a while, since I planned to write the story in the morning. We went to the rodeo arena, where the concerts were held and stayed for her performance.

My first introduction to the Brazoria County Fairgrounds went well. I can’t remember what I wrote. I didn’t keep a copy in my files, which may mean that after I read it in print, I didn’t like it much.

I worked on some other county fair stories that year. I think I wrote one on Senior Day. I took a photo of Gov. Bill Clements and one of the fair clowns. I don’t think we ever published it, though. I always had a camera and extra film back in those days, wherever I went.

The next year I was working at the Houston Chronicle, and reporting on the county fair became more complicated. I was looking for subjects that would stand out from all the other fairs in the Chronicle’s circulation area. Sometimes I came upon an angle they liked, and other times I just had a good time at the fair.

I liked chasing stories for the Chronicle. I did it for 12 years before I jumped ship, and we started The Bulletin, where I could do as much composing and layout as I wanted. That’s when I started to work on our first county fair section in 1994.

This is the 30th special Brazoria County Fair section I have produced, and each one has been an adventure and a learning experience. Thank you, readers and advertisers, for giving us the opportunity to disseminate information about it all these years. We’ll do it again next year.

John.bulletin@gmail.com