Two people to know from the 2023 Monterey County Fair

I spent last weekend at the Monterey County Fair... and so did a sizable chunk of Salinas residents.

This five-day event was jam-packed with activities, from an interactive children's agricultural exhibit to pony rides, country music tribute concerts, and vendors selling everything from bubble waffle cone ice cream to handmade quilts. This year there were also two new bars as part of an effort to bring in a younger crowd on weekends, according to fair media coordinator Tayler Baldwin.

The Monterey County Fair is one of the largest, if not the largest, fair on the central coast. Baldwin said the fair's budgeted gross profit for 2023 is over $1 million (with a budgeted net profit of $279,000, as of last Friday).

The Monterey County Fair has been around since 1935. But every year it brings in new food, rides and new performers – this year Mark Wilder stole the show.

The one-man Wilder Show is an 80's-themed circus comedy performance starring Wilder as he juggles and performs stunts on his seven foot tall unicycle.

Two days before was Wilder’s 22nd anniversary of unicycling.

He stumbled upon the unicycle by chance, seeing one in a shop window on his way home from work and deciding to pick it up – it was, after all, his birthday. He started practicing every day and it became an obsession, a passion. Now when he isn’t working on a unicycle, he’s riding trails with or playing basketball on it (he competes internationally in unicycle basketball).

Wilder told me his favorite part of performing is spreading joy.

“It really doesn’t matter if they’re laughing at me or with me, as long as they’re having a good time... because [when] people come to the fair this might be the one day they come out all year, and they’ve saved their money to be here... and even if I’ve been doing 150 fair days all summer, when I get here, you gotta realize that these people are so excited to be there. And for me, it’s really fun just to make people smile and laugh. And it’s not even about the tricks. You know? I’m just a goofball. So I like making people happy.”

Wilder also provided some tips on learning how to juggle and unicycle.

"Juggling is like walking a dog," he said. "You're always picking stuff up off the ground. Both things are discouraging at first. And if you're easily discouraged, it's very easy to walk away from. I tell people with a unicycle that it takes 10 hours to learn. And most people give up after 10 minutes. It's one of those things where I tell the kids, 'if you do this for an hour a day for a week, you're going to be able to ride by the end of the week.'"

I also enjoyed getting to know the wood carvers at the fair, who have been coming out to Monterey each year for over 12 years all the way from Olympia, Washington. George Kenny, founder of the School of Chainsaw and Carving, also came into his work by serendipitous chance. Kenny told me he never intended to be a woodcarver. Instead, his intention was to open up a little ice cream espresso shop in Washington state. After five months of his business running, a man pulled up in front of the shop with wood carvings in his trunk, asking Kenny if he could set up shop in front of the store.

“I wanted people to stop and watch him and maybe buy my stuff,” Kenny explained. “So that’s how it all began... when we decided to start carving and doing demonstrations, just like we are now [at the Monterey County Fair] in front of the shop, that turned out to be a little gold mine because people would stay there in groups to watch him and then come in to buy my (espresso ice cream). And pretty soon I was out there helping him and learning and practicing that trade.”

Kenny started learning and improving his woodcarving skills, eventually doing competitions around the country and wining shows. “And always people would ask me, ‘do you ever teach?’ and I didn’t have time to teach. I didn’t know if I was good enough to teach but I got better and better and pretty soon started a school teaching people how to carve. So now we own a school and people come from all over the country to learn.”

Kenny’s favorite part of wood carving is taking something that has “no value” and turning nto something with value very quickly. He can get wood straight from the beach – or from a logger or tree service – in places like Watsonville. Even if the wood is in chunks and pieces, it’s perfect for his carvers, who can turn it into something fun.

And turn it into something fun they did. At the fair, they live-carved pelicans and dolphins among other nautical themed sculptures in a salute to the Central Coast using local redwood from places around Watsonville.

“In the old days, the fairs were all about trading of things around the farming industry. They bring their animals in to sell them. They bring their plants in or their produce in and that’s what the fairs were all about, There’s still people that do their food, making fudge and wine and doing their own craft, but it’s gotten less of that and more commercial now. So I think the public likes to watch someone do their trade. And they like to watch someone make something. And with a chainsaw, of course, it’s a dangerous tool.”

Whether it’s by performing on unicycle or blazing through a block of redwood to form a dolphin in under a hour, these artists certainly captivated the public this Labor Day Weekend. Considering the 2023 fair had a 200% increase in ticket pre-sales, according to Baldwin, who knows what’s in store for 2024.

This article originally appeared on Salinas Californian: Meet these two people who shined at the 2023 Monterey County Fair