The Orange County Fair will return to the fairgrounds on July 12 and
will stick around through July 28. Every year, it seems the fair breaks
attendance records and attracts bigger entertainment names. This year
should be quite similar, though with a few upgrades to security as a
result of Sept. 11.
On Thursday, City Editor James Meier visited the fairgrounds to
discuss the 110th annual event with new fair board member "Teddie" Ray, a
Newport Harbor High School graduate and Laguna Beach resident.
Q: What got you started on the fair board?
A: My husband is a real activist, and he's been involved in politics
all of his life. We've been involved in supporting and raising money for
Gov. Davis for about -- Michael's been doing it for about 20 years. A
long time.
So this appointment came up, and since I grew up around here and I
feel that this is such a familiar thing, I thought "I want this." So I
applied.
What's so exciting, the best part of being on the board for me, is we
love riding horses. And we're hoping to expand our equestrian center. The
new fair board is so excited about having community activities on the
site, and we're looking for an off-site equestrian center. Those things
can tie in, from an educational standpoint, with the agricultural,
environmental and conservational issues. If we could have that use for
this site, it would be so much more encompassing than what it's kind of
known for now.
Q: What are the chances of the equestrian center moving to the former
El Toro Marine Corps Air Station at this point?
A: It's so new, but we've put in a letter of interest, and we're
waiting to hear from that. We're still looking at all of the
possibilities. That would be so perfect -- right up against the Cleveland
National Forest with miles of trails.
Q: What would replace the current site here?
A: Right now, Centennial Farms sees about 60,000 kids a year on school
trips, and they learn. With the urbanization of Orange County, we're
losing all the agricultural land, kids don't know how things are grown,
and it all relates to bad nutrition, too, because they don't know that
things can't come out of a manufactured bag. So this is a learning thing
there.
Then we can shift some of the more equestrian and ranching sort of
education over on our site here. We'll still have our trainers. We will
be scaling down the equestrian center, but we're still going to be doing
community programs here. But another site would give us -- especially at
