{"id":54964,"date":"2014-08-27T07:18:50","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T12:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=54964"},"modified":"2014-08-27T07:18:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T12:18:50","slug":"fair-gets-unofficial-start-with-tug-a-truck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2014\/08\/27\/fair-gets-unofficial-start-with-tug-a-truck\/","title":{"rendered":"Fair gets unofficial start with Tug A Truck"},"content":{"rendered":"

Van Wert County Fair information<\/i><\/p>\n

Despite a small afternoon shower at the fairgrounds, Tug a Truck welcomed 19 local area Tuggers to the grandstand for a first annual unofficial kick-off.<\/p>\n

In the 5,500-pound class, Bob Zizelman of Rockford took third, Dan Baxter of Convoy earned a second place finish, and Matt Sites of Spencerville took home the win.<\/p>\n

\"Dusty<\/a>
Dusty Figley dumps a bucket of ice water on Van Wert County Fair Board Director Sarah Smith during an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Tuesday evening at the fairgrounds. (photo by Bob Barnes)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the 7,500-pound class, Sean Ziakam of Van Wert finished third, Bruce Gatshall of Van Wert was second, and, again, Matt Sites of Spencerville won first place and took home the title.<\/p>\n

An interesting twist to the event was the addition of an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.\u00a0This challenge went viral on Facebook this summer and is an activity intended to promote awareness and encourage donations for research toward research for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig\u2019s Disease.<\/p>\n

The challenge dares a nominated person to be filmed having a bucket of ice water dumped over their head and challenging others to do the same.\u00a0The stipulation is that a nominated candidate has 24 hours either to comply or make a charitable financial donation to the cause.\u00a0Many people choose to complete the challenge and donate as well.<\/p>\n

Tug a Truck Emcee Spencer Balliet introduced Sarah Smith, Fair Board director for Pleasant Township.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Sarah Smith and I was called out by my good friend, Major David Drass of Las Vegas, Nevada,\u201d Smith said.\u00a0\u201cI am calling out the entire opening ceremony of the Van Wert County Fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith proceeded to inform the crowd of some of the representatives that should be at the ceremony, all the Fair Board directors, the county commissioners, all the village mayors, township trustees, County Sheriff Thomas Riggenbach, Van Wert Fire Chief Jim Steele and Police Chief Joel Hammond, even a governor\u2019s rep and possibly the state treasurer.<\/p>\n

Smith did add that she will also be donating.\u00a0The official opening ceremony of the Van Wert County Fair will be held at 5 p.m. today.\u00a0The forecast says there could be rain, but, either way, Van Wert County leaders attending the opening ceremony may want to consider bringing along a change of clothes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Van Wert County Fair information Despite a small afternoon shower at the fairgrounds, Tug a Truck welcomed 19 local area Tuggers to the grandstand for a first annual unofficial kick-off. In the 5,500-pound class, Bob Zizelman of Rockford took third, Dan Baxter of Convoy earned a second place finish, and Matt Sites of Spencerville took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 16:13:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}