Oechsle to retire as county fair manager

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

A man many consider a Van Wert County Fair institution has announced his retirement at the end of the year.

“I just decided that I am retiring officially on December 31,” said Paul Oechsle, who has spent the last 22 years as fair manager, while also serving 42 years as a fair director, going all the way back to the mid-1960s.

“It’s just time,” Oechsle noted. “My wife and I would like to travel a bit and I want to continue farming.”

The longtime fair manager said that, while he has gotten much enjoyment from seeing people at the fair and the event grow over the years — from a gross of $350,000 in the 1960s to more than $1 million in recent years — he admitted that the recent economic downturn has been a challenge for the fair.

“It has been difficult the last couple of years, but it is better now than it has been and I think the turnaround has happened,” Oechsle said, noting his feeling that the fair will continue to improve a little bit each year after weathering some tough financial times.

There have many highlights as well in his four-decade-long involvement with the fair, although the highlight, the fair manager said,  was his selection as president of the Ohio Fair Managers Association a few years ago.

Oechsle spent some time reminiscing, noting that today’s fair is much different from when he first came on the board in the 1960s — the youngest person ever to be a fair director at that time.

“We had tents for the animals in those days, where we have buildings today,” the longtime fair manager said. “They showed in tents as well.”

There has also been a gradual modernization of the fairgrounds over the years, he noted, with replacement of the old Commercial Building with today’s modern structure perhaps the biggest project he was involved with.

The fair board also had a different make-up in those days, Oechsle noted.

“Then, 95 percent of the fair directors were farmers, older gentlemen,” he said, noting that the fair board composition then made it easier to get things done as well.

“The farmers could always take off a day to come in and get things done,” Oechsle said, adding that most of today’s directors have non-farming jobs, making it harder for them to find the extra time to work on fair projects.

In years past, fair board directors were also “generalists”: having their own areas of operation, but also helping other directors out when they needed it. Today, Oechsle noted, directors tend to be more specialized in the things they do related to operation of the fair.

That doesn’t mean today’s directors aren’t dedicated to making the fair the best it can be, he added.

“People today are good workers and good directors, but they have other jobs and those jobs need to come first,” Oechsle said.

Looking forward, the fair manager said the 2012 edition of the fair would again be a six-day fair, like this year’s, and will start on Wednesday, August 29, and end on Labor Day, September 3, 2012.

Fair directors are also looking to add some entertainment for this year’s fair, Oechsle said, but added that he sees more change on the horizon for the more than 150-year-old event.

While the Junior Fair portion of the fair is as popular as ever, Oechsle said he sees the Senior Fair portion “backing off a bit.” Horse racing is also another area that has declined in recent years and Oechsle said he sees that trend continuing, but said newer events, such as the demolition derby and the tractor and truck pulls remain popular with fair-goers.

Meanwhile, the longtime fair director and manager said future fair boards would have to come up with new events and activities of interest to a changing community if the fair is to continue to prosper and grow.

“They’ve got to invent something new, bring in new events for people,” Oechsle said, but added he feels that basic support for the fair remains high.

“Van Wert is a community that’s interested in something like this,” he said, while adding that out-of-town residents “are definitely supportive of our fair.”

What lies in Oechsle’s future? He said he and his wife will travel some, but he still plans to continue farming, adding that, after a few years of health problems, he’s in better health today than he has been for some time.

No doubt, he’ll also hand out some advice to the young whippersnappers who operate future fairs … if they’re smart enough to take advantage of his four decades of fair experience.