Final day of Allen County Fair ends with a roar
Aug. 29—LIMA — Dallas Tolliver of Greenwich, Ohio was one of the drivers in Saturday night's truck pull to close out the Allen County Fair.
"Dad got me started. He's been doing it for 20-30 years," Tolliver said.
The 23-year-old was driving a pickup truck that was made before he was even born.
"It's a 1979 GMC 3/4 ton and I'm pulling in the limited street class," Tolliver said.
He's pulling for points and so far he's doing OK.
"I've been happy with how we're doing," Tolliver said.
This was the first year for the truck pull produced by Buckeye Power Productions.
"We're all trucks. We have three classes. They work their way up in progression and then we have one diesel class and we also have a daily driver class for people to just get the sport bigger," said Tanner Foley, co-owner of Buckeye Power Productions.
The truck pull marked the conclusion of the 2021 edition of the Allen County Fair.
Fair Board President Brad Core was generally pleased with how things went during the nine-day event.
"Oh they went great —way smoother than I ever thought they could go based on not having a fair manager," Core said.
They're still tallying the numbers but Core was optimistic.
"We're on track right now to have the second-largest gate revenue in the history of the Allen County Fair, that's with this year being only second to the 2019 gate revenue which had a sellout Kane Brown concert," Core said.
Core says they hope to have a new fair manager selected soon.
The deadline to apply for the opening through Ohio Means Jobs Allen County runs through the end of August and Core expects the screening committee to meet by the end of the week to decide who to interview.
"We're hoping to have the second round interviews with the full board and the potential of having somebody on board by the end of September," Core said.
Normally the fair board hopes to have next year's entertainment announced by the fair but this year that didn't happen.
"We've been looking at and working with Variety Attractions. We do not have a signed contract with an artist yet but we've been working to narrow down the list, trying to see what the options are," Core said.
Reach Sam Shriver at 567-242-0409.
