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A Family Affair
Lucketts Fair offers bluegrass, wacky games and hand-churned ice cream: Gloria Bradley said those who know her are careful to give her a wide berth this time of year. Get too close, talk too long or walk too slowly past her in a crowd, and you just might find yourself serving as one of the estimated 300 volunteers working at the annual Lucketts Fair that takes place this Saturday and Sunday at the Lucketts Community Center.
If you are related, she indicated, you don't stand a chance of not being commandeered into action.
Bradley said this has been her second year working the fair that draws people from all up and down the eastern seaboard. When she began, her main responsibility was working with the 50 or so students of Heritage High School in running their lemonade stand.
This year, however, her field of endeavor has expanded.
Her mother, Ethel Jones of Leesburg, is baking 10 cakes for the cake walk.
Her brother, Henry Greenhow, is putting up tents. Bradley's husband, Les, will be helping him. Les et al. also will be picking up 100 tables from Bradley's place of employment, Cryptek Inc. in Sterling.
"My niece, Diana Newman, will be helping me do whatever. She will be my other right-hand person -- my go-getter, my do-this-do-that person. So it really becomes a family affair," Bradley said.
Bradley, together with Julie Metz and Jan Hyland, are all members of the Lucketts Community Center Advisory Board.
"I was actually co-chair with Jan and Julie for the fair, coordinating and putting everything together," Bradley said.
Planning for the two-day event, Bradley said, is a year-long process, beginning shortly after the fair ends. There are sponsors and volunteers to be enlisted, events to be coordinated, arts and crafts to be juried, antiques dealers to be confirmed, judges rounded up for the pie-baking competition and a petting zoo to be scheduled.
Jan Hyland, president of the Lucketts Community Center Advisory Board, wanted to talk about the entertainment that will be available. There will be one stage devoted to bluegrass music that will have bands performing all day both days. Another stage will have a playground and entertainment, a puppet show, musicians and clowns. The third stage will have different music, Hyland said. Saturday those in the spotlight will be local youth bands. Sunday headliner John Luskey of Maryland, a contemporary country-music recording artist, returns for his third year at the fair.
"We have a tractor pedal pull, toy tractors that pull weight, little weights for all ages. There are different categories. We have our own tractor pedal pull built by a local family, Lauren and Larry Lang of Lucketts. Lauren is one of our board members," Hyland said.
Hyland explained that the hand-churned ice cream is provided by the Lucketts Elementary School PTA with the help of about 100 volunteers. This year there will be 15 flavors from which to choose. The fact that much of the fruit used is from local farms is in keeping with the theme of the fair, "Fresh-Squeezed Fun With Home-Grown Flavor!"
"I would like to emphasize the traditional component of the fair. It's always easy to keep the things that people love, but it's harder to keep those old traditions going as generations move and new generations move in, and Lucketts has been able to do that. These are things like the ice cream and the Ruritan barbecue, the church's ham sandwiches. ... One of the things that keeps Lucketts a special fair is to keep those special traditions. We've partnered with Temple Hall Farm to return the hayride. As things change, we are trying to stay true to the traditions that we can and keep it the special fair that it's always been," Hyland said.
Hyland said some of the events that have been added include a rooster-crowing competition and the Wacky Olympics. These Olympics will include a pie-eating contest, a straw-bale relay race and a rubber chicken toss.
Julie Metz exuded confidence.
"I think it's going to be the best year ever. The thing that I have worked on the most is the Green Pavilion. Last year it was the coolest place at the fair," Metz said.
Metz is referring to the fact that last year's fair took place on two of the hottest days of summer, with temperatures reaching 103 degrees.
"We had solar panels running the fans. We were baking cookies. You could get a cool bottle of water from the refrigerator powered by solar heating," Metz said.
This year, Metz said, the pavilion will have demonstrations from those who do green building; representatives from the Loudoun County Committee for a Sustainable Society; experts from the DDE_LINKLoudoun County Office of Waste Management DDE_LINK; Master Gardeners; My Organic Market; and Go 21, a railroad organization headquartered in Alexandria that promotes rail transportation.
"This is a very new kind of thing for this very old-fashioned fair. I think that the Lucketts Fair has a terrific history and so many people have been coming year after year. ... What better way to keep it alive than to get kids involved and maybe we'll make it another 36 years," Metz said.
Contact the writer at ecarlton@timespapers.com
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