San Juan County Fair underway this week

FARMINGTON, N.M. – While many of the traditions at the San Juan County Fair are more than 100 years old, many young folks at the county fair are making sure these traditions live on.

It’s that time of year again, the smell of fried food filling the late summer air, enticing lemonade stands to help escape from the heat, and racing teams are prepping their outhouses for Monday’s big race.

“Our outhouse has wheels and we will have one person inside the outhouse and there will be certain parts of the obstacle course that each person will do as one person is in there the rest of the people will be pushing,” SJC Fair Queen Attendant, Sariah Chapman said.

And this San Juan County Fair tradition comes with some stiff competition.

“We’ve won all three years too, royalty has been winning all past three years. I hope we win tonight,” Chapman added.

While competing for some, others are purely spectators, like Jonah Ledesma.

“I am just having fun and I want to see the animals and everything. I just don’t really get to see animals like pigs where I live,” said Chapman. 

And pigs happen to be the animal of choice for 18-year-old swine showman, Preston Haeden. 

“Teaches you a lot of life skills I see it as, I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years now, I went from showing goats to showing pigs,” said Haeden. 

He’s hoping his dedication to this long-standing fair tradition pays off. 

“I am hoping with him, I do good, he’s a good pig. I haven’t won anything since I have been showing, I made a sale once or twice, it’s very competitive,” Haeden added.

The San Juan County Fair runs through Saturday.