Sources |
- [S73] Rawlings Funeral Home, Book 2, 18 May 1973.
William Ernest Thurman obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 29 Aug 2005.
Fair's future in doubt
Committee to explore options
By: STAN VOIT, Editor August 29, 2005
Earnest Thurman began working with the Sevier County Fair in 1940, serving as secretary for many years. His son Jack Thurman began his association with the fair in 1949 and serves today as its president.
One week before the 70th annual Sevier County Fair opens, Thurman and others are worried this might be the last one. The Old Knoxville Highway fairground is the site chosen by the Sevier County Commission for a new minimum-security jail facility. The city of Sevierville plans to widen the road in front of the fairground and add a river walk on the back of the property, both of which will affect fairground parking and existing facilities.
The 2006 fair is a year away, but right now nobody is sure where it will be, if it will be held at all, and in what form it might take shape.
"If there isn't a fair next year," Thurman said, "the fair will be dead. It can't make a comeback. If it lays off a year or two, it will not ever survive. I know I won't stay with it. I don't know of a fair that laid off and came back."
County Mayor Larry Waters named a committee earlier this year to look into the issue and come up with suggestions. That committee will meet at 5 p.m. Monday in Waters' office to talk about it. But the committee hasn't met "in several months," its chairman said, so little may have been done to find a solution.
"I'm not worried about the fair's future," Commissioner Jimmie Temple, committee chairman, said. "We'll find a place for it. I really don't have anything to say at all about a place until we meet."
In 1935, the fair began on property that is now Sevierville Middle School. When the school system acquired the land in 1974, University of Tennessee officials were contacted about property the Stokely Food Company gave the university on Old Knoxville Highway. UT agreed to sell the land to the county for $5,500, Thurman said. The fair still uses the original Stokely buildings. The site had 21 acres, Thurman said, but changes to the Little Pigeon River have reduced that to 17.
Thurman said UT sold the land with the understanding it would remain a fairground, but that agreement, he said, is not in writing.
Thurman understands the commission's decision to use the fairground for a jail and does not object. He just wishes officials would move faster to find the fair a new home.
But maybe the fair doesn't have to move. Waters thinks there may be a way to keep the fair at the current site and use a shuttle service to move people to and from the fair from an off-site parking lot, once construction on Old Knoxville Highway begins. Waters also is talking to adjoining property owners to see if the county can buy land to expand the site and accommodate both the jail and the fair.
"All of these things the commission is looking at," Waters said. "We've asked the committee to look at a number of options."
Some attention has been paid to the county-owned industrial park on Pittman Center Road (Highway 416), a site Thurman likes. But county officials say deed restrictions that conveyed the land to the county make a fairground unacceptable as a use of the property.
"We've not tried to resolve that," Waters said. "I want to hear from this committee to see what they think is best."
Temple says he has "no idea" if a fair will be held next year but feels an answer will come soon - maybe as soon as Monday's meeting.
Thurman said a good fair site can mean big bucks to the county. He pointed to a recent gathering of more than 350 Airstream owners who, a survey showed, spent some $1 million during their five days here. A fairground with a suitable arena can attract horse shows, rodeos and other events, as well as motor home conventions like the one with the Airstreams.
Thurman said a fair in 2006 on a partially developed site may be as bad as not having a fair at all.
"We have one of the best fairs in Tennessee," he said. "We have over 5,000 exhibits. If we try to have things in a tent instead of a building, we'll make a mockery of it. Rain would ruin it."
Waters said options being considered by county officials seem to ensure the future of the fair.
* svoit@themountainpress.com
|