After a year’s absence, the Grange Fair and Encampment has returned to Centre Hall.
Sunday was a day for tenters to set up before the fair officially opens on Aug. 20. In the tent area, pickup trucks, SUVs and utility trailers were seen in every row, and the sounds of drills, hammers and leaf blowers were heard as tenters assembled front porches and rear kitchen add-ons for their tents, and cleaned up leaves and debris from the tent platforms. The add-ons are mostly wooden, plastic pipe or metal tube-framed and are covered with plastic tarps.
Many tenters cover their tents and added porches with a large tarp to prevent rain from leaking between the tents and porches.
In an event that has existed for 147 years, it’s not unusual to find tenters whose families have been tenting for very long times. John and Marita Smith of Potters Mills were setting up their tent on Sunday. John Smith said his family has tented at the fair for 100 years, beginning with his great-grandfather, Michael Smith, followed by his grandfather John Roy Smith, and his father Dean Smith.
Another longtime tenter was Beverly Reese of Port Matilda. She was there with her step-daughter Sandy Ghaner and her husband Derrill Ghaner, erecting a front porch, complete with carpet, duct taped to the asphalt tent floor. They have been tenting in the same spot for 15 years, but were in a different location for many years, beginning in 1973.
Sandy Ghaner commented on the uniqueness of the fair with its tents.
“You only really appreciate it if you grew up with it,” she said.
Across the road, in the camper area, trailers and motorhomes were rolling in by the hundreds, to fill the 1,500 spots in that area. There seemed to be an atmosphere of excitement greater than usual in the air, perhaps because of the fair’s absence last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. People seemed excited to return to an event their families have known and loved for decades, or even for a century.
This story appears in the Aug. 19-25 edition of the Centre County Gazette.
