BEDFORD - Joe and Sherri Nave and their six children vacation closer to home than most families probably do.
The Naves of Bedford take time off from work to spend the week at the Bedford County Fair, showing horses and other animals and entering items such as a pair of shorts their daughter, Cassadie, 11, sewed for the fair's junior exhibits. She won a first-prize ribbon in the junior needlecraft department for her efforts.
Eleven 4-H clubs had booths inside the junior exhibit building at the 137th annual fair, which will wrap up festivities Saturday.
Fair board Vice President Jim Edwards said attendance was on par Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday brought in higher numbers than last year. If the weather holds out for the rest of the week, they hope to reach 50,000, he said.
Tonight's stock car racing at 6:30 p.m. and Saturday's large car demolition derby at 6 p.m. usually draw a crowd, Edwards said.
Dwayne Hay, 4-H extension agent, said participation in the junior exhibits are down from previous years in such areas as clothing and textile and produce and flowers. He attributes it to a downturn on an up-and-down cycle. The produce and flowers could have taken a hit from the wet, cold spring.
That didn't stop some from turning in award-winning items in categories such as arts and crafts.
"What we have here is very good," he said.
Among display items were the green and brown plaid shorts sewn by Cassadie Nave, who began sewing four years ago. In her third year, she made a sundress, which turned out as the hardest to sew, but her favorite piece, she said.
"I plan on staying until I have to quit," she said of continuing in 4-H.
Her parents believe 4-H has helped their children develop.
"I just think it makes better kids," Sherri Nave said. "Down the road, it will make them better adults."
Mirror Staff Writer Amanda Clegg is at 949-7030.
