Mother keeps late son's legacy alive by displaying Lego creations at North Georgia State Fair

Oct. 2—MARIETTA — The North Georgia State Fair presented by Superior Plumbing has many sights and sounds — live music, exotic animals, a massive indoor sand sculpture and nostalgia-inducing fried foods.

For well over a decade, one mainstay of the fair was a feat of plastic engineering: the Lego creations of the late Shane Ayers.

Ayers, who died last fall at 48, was known for building intricate recreations of carnival rides with Lego parts. Fair manager Tod Miller estimates that Ayers' creations were displayed at the annual fair for 15, perhaps 20 years.

Ayers' mother, east Cobb resident Faye Arrowood, kept the tradition alive at this year's fair, displaying the Lego rides and giving away, in individual plastic bags, some of the thousands of loose Lego parts Ayers left behind.

Ryan Shane Ayers was born April 1, 1973, with hydrocephalus, an "abnormal buildup of fluid in the ventricles (cavities) deep within the brain," as described by the National Institutes of Health. Arrowood said Ayers underwent five surgeries to have shunts placed in his brain, and the hydrocephalus caused mental and physical disabilities.

Around the age of 8, Ayers started playing with Legos, his mother recalled. Soon, he was using loose parts to build his own creations. He also developed a love of carnivals.

"And he started making simple little rides — none of them were kits, just loose Legos," Arrowood said.

The rides grew gradually more complex. Ayers used old necklaces to make chains that he used in the rides. Ayers employed electric motors to make the rides come alive, moving like their real-life counterparts.

"He just kept on and on. And he said God gave him that talent," Arrowood said.

Miller said many of Ayers' rides were modeled off of the carnival rides of the James H. Drew Exposition, an Augusta-based carnival company that brings its rides to fairs all over the country, including the fair in Marietta.

"He was always just a great guy. ... He loved the fair, the carnival and that aspect of it," Miller said.

Ayers was so well known at the fair that the ride operators, despite constantly traveling across the country, would remember and recognize him when they came to Marietta, Arrowood said.

Charlene Kilgore, a longtime fair fixture who serves as chair of noncommercial exhibits, said Ayers possessed a certain genius in crafting the complex Lego displays.

"To do all that, that was a true gift," Kilgore said. "It was amazing. He was just an incredible guy."

Kilgore and Arrowood fondly recalled how protective Ayers was over the display. They both also mentioned his devout Christian faith.

"He made little cards, Bible verses, he'd hand them out to people everywhere we went," Arrowood said.

Ayers' display, which covered three tables in the fair's exhibit hall, attracted passerby whom Ayers would then speak with about religion.

"He fell in love with Jesus, and he wanted to share that with everybody," Kilgore said. "That was what he wanted to do. And you know, sometimes we use all kinds of things as a doorway, and if people stopped to look at the Legos ... then you can just, in talking to them, share. ... He wanted to get the message out."

Ayers was hospitalized last year with a bout of pneumonia. Then he had a stroke, which left him severely immobilized. The rest of his life would've been spent in a nursing home, hooked up to a breathing machine, Arrowood said.

"And he said he wanted to be with Jesus," she recalled.

Ayers died Oct. 5, 2021, two days after last year's fair ended.

"I tell you, I'm broken, I am," Arrowood said. "I mean, I know without a doubt he's in Jesus' arms. ... But I'm just broken because I miss him so much."

A few hours before his death, Ayers told his family he wanted the Lego rides to continue to be displayed at the fair. Much of his knowledge of the rides was lost with him — including how to repair them, and how the motors work.

Arrowood has given away bags of loose parts, unfinished rides and toy cars to children at the fair. But she has preserved the finished rides, and displayed a table full of them at this year's fair, which ends Sunday.

"We love keeping it going and we want to keep it a yearly thing. ... She's taking the steps to try to keep his legacy alive," Miller said.