It was fair week the week before last.

And you know what? It was a pretty darn good fair.

As someone who visits the fair every day, I can truthfully say that there was a lot to see and do at this year’s Faribault County Fair.

There were so many food trucks and food vendors I could hardly get to them all. There seemed to be activities under the Tent and around the fairgrounds all day, every day. And if you checked the 4-H schedule, they had something going on every day, starting first thing in the morning.

The grandstand events seemed to be popular and well attended. With a variety of kinds of entertainment – something for everyone.

So did the other entertainment, under the Tent and around the grounds. Celie Holland and her band packed the area under the Tent and all around outside the Tent for her show.

The Fitzsimmons, another singing group from the area, were also a huge hit as they performed in the Veterans Building to an appreciative crowd.

Of course, the fact there was a carnival midway with big rides and that the weather was great (except for Saturday, maybe) helped a lot to bring people to the fair.

As is true every year, the two reporters at the Register and myself spend a lot of time taking photos at the fair. Hundreds of photos. We try to get to every event, or at least as many as we can. My day on Monday after the fair is basically to look through all of those photos and choose which ones to save. I always save too many, but we did run a lot of them last week and a bunch more this week.

We are a little bit blessed here at the Register in that we can run a lot of our pages in color. So we try and take advantage of that and run lots of photos on those color pages.

I hope you enjoy them. If you were at the fair, you might even be in one of the photos. And I hope you had the time to go to the fair this year.

I used to say I had a love/hate relationship with the fair. That meant that I liked going to the fair, but I also had to do a lot of work at the fair.

Now I just love the fair, whether I am working there or not. Probably because my most fun thing to do at the fair, for me, is to visit with people. I am a bit too old for going on all the rides, after all.

My work at the fair now includes more than just taking pictures. I put in a four-hour stint at the Trinity Food Stand Friday evening, and a four-hour stint working Saturday morning at the 4-H Food Building flipping pancakes for the Veterans Breakfast. You know what? Even doing that was pretty fun.

And after going to the fair each day, I even went back on Sunday to attend Trinity’s church service at the Trinity Food Stand. They do that every year. And every year you can hear the chickens clucking and the antique tractors firing up and being taking off the fairgrounds right during the service.

And the temperature on Sunday morning was warm but comfortable in case you wondered.

Later on Sunday we attended the Town and Country Players production of Wizard of Oz. In the air-conditioned Performing Arts Center.

It was a great show and they all did a terrific job. Dorothy (Sienna Webster) was awesome, but you know what? Everyone, right down to the kids playing munchkins, did great. I think my favorite was Kim Warner as the Wicked Witch.

It was nice to see the T&C Players putting on a big show, complete with pit orchestra, once again. And nice to see the large crowd on Sunday enjoying the show.

So while this week’s column is not an “official” Cheers and Jeers column, I just have to send out a Cheer to the Faribault County Fair Board and to each and every person who had anything to do with putting on this year’s fair, and that is a whole lot of people. In fact, the number of folks who volunteer in one way or another at the fair is a huge number.

And a second Cheer goes out to the Town and Country Players and all those who had anything to do with putting on the Wizard of Oz, from actors to stage crew to orchestra members and directors. Well done.

You all did a great job. Kudos to you.

So it was quite a week. In and amongst the time spent at the fairgrounds and in the land of Oz, we also still managed to get a newspaper published each week.

Now it is on to Frost Fest, Relay for Life, National Night Out and Wells Kernel Days. Never a dull moment here in Faribault County.