INDIANAPOLIS —
Officially, it’s the Year of the Dairy Cow at the Indiana State Fair, which opens Friday, but this year’s fair logo carries another theme: “Celebrating the Hoosier Spirit.”
Fair officials hope the theme reflects both their desire to move past the deadly stage collapse that marred last year’s fair, while still honoring the victims — and all the people who rushed to the scene to help.
“It’s directly linked to what we saw happen last year,” said fair spokesman Andy Klotz. “We saw Hoosiers coming together to help other Hoosiers.”
This year, during the fair’s 17-day run, organizers are hoping to attract a crowd of more than 850,000 by offering the perennially popular fair staples, from barnyard animals to midway rides.
But they’ve also carved out space and time to acknowledge the tragedy that took seven lives and injured dozens when an outdoor stage rigging collapsed on a waiting concert crowd.
On Aug. 13, at 8:46 a.m., all fair festivities will come to a halt for a moment of silence to mark the one-year anniversary of the fatal event. Crowds likely will gather near the scene of the stage collapse where a plaque with the names of the dead was unveiled last month.
Some may choose instead to gather near a new art sculpture in the northwest quadrant of the fairgrounds. The 12-feet high sculpture of three wooden, twisting stalks of corn is titled “Celebrating Hoosier Spirit.”
It’s recognition that in the chaos of the stage collapse, which came moments after high winds swept across the fairgrounds, there were hundreds of people who rushed to the scene to help those who were trapped underneath.
At a memorial service for the victims last year, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels recounted stories of people who risked their own safety in the mad search for victims and survivors. “There was a hero every 10 feet,” Daniels said.
His wife, Cheri Daniels, has been a fair booster and ambassador since Daniels took office in 2005. She’s driven tractors pulling cartloads of fair visitors, scooped up squealing piglets in her arms, and competed in watermelon-spitting and cow-milking contests. She’ll host her eighth annual two-mile Heartland Walk for Health on the fairgrounds Aug. 11.
In recent days, she’s been on radio stations across the state, urging people to come to the fair and reminding them of the fun to be had.
“People assume because I’m from New Albany, I was raised on a farm,” Cheri Daniels said. “But the first time I touched a cow was at the Indiana State Fair.”
Cheri Daniels was in the grandstand last year with the crowd waiting for a concert by the country duo Sugarland to begin when a storm swept in. She left moments before the stage rigging collapsed, urged to leave by a state trooper. As she was doing so, fair officials decided to cancel the concert, but by then, it was too late.
Questions about why fair officials didn’t evacuate the concert crowd sooner, as bad weather was moving in, have become part of a series of lawsuits filed by families of the victims. Cindy Hoye, the fair’s executive director for the past eight years, told the Associated Press that the tragedy haunts fair officials.
“You have to understand that this team out here has been devastated,” Hoye said in her first interview since the collapse. “We don’t take any of that lightly, that there have been people who have lost their lives, people who are forever impacted. There is not a moment that goes by in our planning that we don’t think about what happened.”
Among the new safety and security measures put into place this year in an effort to prevent another tragedy is the onsite presence of a meteorologist who works for a commercial weather company that provides weather-forecasting services at PGA Tour events. Fair workers, vendors, and volunteers have all gone through safety training.
“You can never minimize a tragedy like this,” Cheri Daniels said. Her message is that it’s possible to both remember the tragedy and celebrate an Indiana tradition that’s now in its 156th year. “We don’t just have a state fair. We have a great state fair,” she said. “It’s a real gift.”
Maureen Hayden is the Indiana Statehouse bureau chief for CNHI Newspapers, the parent company of the Tribune-Star. She can be reached at maureen.hayden@indianamediagroup.com.
News
Related Photos
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Soybean bingo: Soybean farmer Brad Burbrink (right) passes out prizes for bingo winners at last year's Indiana State Fair. (Tribune-Star file photo)
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Tribune-Star file photo Remember: A memorial was set up last year under the grandstand at the Indiana State Fair to honor victims of the stage collapse.
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Tribune-Star file photo Award winning: A blue ribbon is displayed on a jar of soybeans at the State Fair soybean information booth during the 2011 fair.
Discussion
State Fair to honor victims, heroes of stage collapse
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