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   from the issue of March 6, 2008

     
 
From the Archives - Farmers' Fair

Originally proposed by Alpha Zeta in 1914, the Farmers' Fair was first held in the spring of 1916. The fair - designed to showcase the activities of agriculture and home economics students - became a dominant activity on the College of Agriculture campus through World War II.

 
CAMPUS CELEBRATION - When this picture was taken in 1924, the Farmers' Fair had become a big event on the College...
 CAMPUS CELEBRATION - When this picture was taken in 1924, the Farmers' Fair had become a big event on the College of Agriculture campus. The Yellow Dog tent in the background is not a fairground food stand. The Yellow Dogs was an organization of university professors and other Lincoln men.

The Farmers' Fair was not held in 1918 and 1919 because of World War I. It became an annual event from 1920 until the Farmers' Fair Board was disbanded in 1959.

Fair goals outlined in the mid-1920s stated that the fair was to be: used to advertise the College of Agriculture and its activities; a day of celebration, with students of the college acting as hosts to the rest of the university and general public; and designed to give students of the college practical experience in managing a large enterprise.

The 1926 Cornhusker yearbook described the fair as the largest non-athletic student activity at the university. In later years, the fair was insured against rain to protect the investment.

A popular fair event in the early years was a parade that followed a route through the O Street business district. Leading the parade was the Goddess of Agriculture float, which featured a senior woman student elected by Home Economics students. Exhibits in campus buildings later replaced the parade.

Other included a beauty pageant, horse show, inter-sorority riding contest, rodeo, style show, dances, boxing, wrestling and a whisker-growing contest. For the whisker contest of 1952, 108 men registered seven weeks before the start of the fair.

Students were expected to work for two days before the fair, men dressing in overalls, women wearing casual cotton dresses. Any student wearing dress clothes was likely to be thrown into a horse tank set up on the mall in front of Agricultural Hall and filled with water. Failure to comply with the rule that everyone works was also a route to the tank.

Use of the tank was stopped in the 1940s when three City Campus students - wearing dress suits and neckties, and headed to a class taught by professor Lloyd "Tuffy" Hurlbut - were stopped by ag students, asked no questions and thrown into the tank fully dressed. Traditionally, individuals being dunked were allowed to remove their good clothes before being dunked.

The three went to Hurlbut and complained. The professor confronted the ag students, but he too was thrown - fully dressed - into the tank.

The next complaint went to Dean Burr, who issued a letter to all departments stating that the dunking was no longer allowed. The horse tank was returned to its owner, ending the long-standing tradition.



"From the Archives" is a regular feature of the Scarlet. Photo provided by the University Archives. Submit items to tfedderson2@unl.edu or 472-8515.



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From the Archives - Farmers' Fair

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