'Meet me at the Roundhouse'

[ Originally published on: Saturday, September 12, 2009 ]

Recorder/Paul Franz

Clarkdale Fruit Farms winning entry in the Roundhouse at the Franklin County Fair Friday.

GREENFIELD -- In the early hours of the Franklin County Fair Friday, 270 seniors gathered under a tent to play 21 games of bingo for prizes donated by local businesses.

Helen Svetaka, who grew up in Millers Falls but now lives in Texas, was just one number shy from winning, but said she was having a terrific time anyhow.

After bingo, Svetaka and her sister-in-law, Shirley Svetaka, took to the Roundhouse, as did many of the fairgoers in the drizzly early afternoon.

'It's beautiful,' Helen Svetaka said, taking in the vibrant colors and wonderful scents of the Roundhouse, stocked as it was with winning produce and handcrafted goods on display alongside vendors of textiles, honey and other agricultural products.

Alexa Snyder of Leyden was greeted with a first-prize blue ribbon for garden roses that she entered. 'I really come just for the Roundhouse,' she said. 'I come when it's quiet to look around.'

'I'm enjoying it very much,' said Robert Lawler, who strolled inside the Roundhouse admiring the quilts draped on the second-floor railing.

The Roundhouse wasn't just the focus of many fairgoers Friday, but a main focus of this year's fair, the 161st. The building gives the fair its theme, 'Meet Me at the Roundhouse.'

Fair organizers have been raising money to restore the building's roof through various means. State grants will help to cover some of the costs, organizers said, but fundraising efforts are needed to make up more of the total price of the renovations, which they said could be in the neighborhood of $175,000.

Nathan L'Etoile, assistant commissioner from the state Department of Agricultural Resources, was on hand, 'in support of the restoration project,' of the Roundhouse, organizers said.

 

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