ORANGE COUNTY, N.Y.—The Orange County Agricultural Society (OCAS) is as old as the Orange County Fair itself, and their histories are inseparable.
The OCAS’s origins begin in 1808, when farmers in Orange County formed an agricultural society to help start an Orange County fair. They tried several times to start the fair over the years but failed to gain public interest. County leaders finally took notice in 1841 and officially formed the OCAS.
The first Orange County Fair was held in November 1841, two months after the society’s creation. The Orange County Fair is one of the oldest fairs in New York.
The OCAS has been part of the fair every year since. The society holds multiple contests, and in their building at the fair, people can see prized vegetables, sewing work, and even Lego creations on exhibit.
Anybody may submit to the exhibit. The categories are Arts & Crafts, Culinary, Sewing and Needlework, Farm and Garden, Scarecrows, Flowers, and Fruits. It generally costs $1 to submit one entry, although it does range up to $6 for scarecrow entries. The prize for a first-place entry is generally $10 and goes up to $60 for the scarecrow contest.
If adults pay $5 or more in submission fees, they will receive four exhibitor passes, which grant entry to the fair. Fair tickets are otherwise $10 each. Any junior who submits to the exhibit will receive a Junior Exhibitor Pass.
Dawn Volkmer, 60, who has been working with the OCAS for 38 years, said that the society’s exhibit is important to the event.
“I feel the flower department, the fruits and vegetables, the selling, the culinary, and arts and crafts are a very big part of the fair,” she told The Epoch Times. “I encourage people to come out and please, please, by all means, enter. When they enter, they also get a ribbon, they get money for their winnings, and they get tickets to get into the fair. So it’s like giving back to the community on top of having people look at their artwork.”
Volkmer recalled that as a child, she would enter the OCAS exhibition because her family couldn’t afford the full price of entering the fair. When she was 6 or 7, she entered a pig mask made of papier-mâché and won first place. Her three sons also submitted to the exhibit in their childhood.
According to Volkmer, participation has greatly decreased. “I want to say when I first started, you couldn’t count [the submissions], you couldn’t walk [through the barn]. This whole barn would be full of arts and crafts. They used to have the flowers, and that was on the whole bottom side.”
“And now, people don’t want to do crafts. People don’t want to cook anymore. People don’t want to do the fruits and vegetables or the flowers. So it’s limiting, it’s really going down.”
Many of the submissions now come from the Warwick Valley Central School District. The school is connected to the OCAS through the Future Farmers of America, an agricultural education curriculum.
