88th annual Lacamas Community Fair deemed a “great weekend”

The 88th annual Lacamas Community Fair, which was hosted on Saturday, Aug. 23, and Sunday, Aug. 24, at the Lacamas Community Center in Roy, welcomed attendees from all throughout the Western Washington region for a weekend of free and family-friendly activities.

Holly Wood, Lacamas Community Fair manager, had her first experience at the annual event roughly 50 years ago when she showed animals as a young child. Later in life, she brought her children to the event to participate in the same 4-H and FFA activities at the Roy-based community center.

“When I was a kid, we came out here and I showed. I’m 60, and that would’ve been when I was 10 or 12 years old,” Wood said. “I showed here, and later in life I brought my kids here, and they showed too. Now, my grandkids are showing here. Back in 2008, somewhere in there, I decided to come back and help out.”

She originally began volunteering in the petting zoo area, and eventually took over baking. Now, she’s in charge of the event and serves a leadership role for the Lacamas Community Fair. Wood said the organization has been focused on rebuilding the annual event after consecutive years of closure in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.

“We would’ve been closer to the 100th annual fair, but back in the early days, they didn’t have the fair because of (World War II),” Wood said. “Most recently, we didn’t have the fair because of COVID-19. In two more years, we’ll be celebrating our 90th anniversary.”

Wood added that the event has often served as a point of reunion for residents in the area and for people that have moved away from the Nisqually Valley Region. A group of local high school alumni have used the annual Lacamas Community Fair to reunite and catch up for “quite some time,” according to Wood.

“I know lots of new families have come out with their kids and participated in all of these fun crafts. They just did the apple pie baking contest. That’s a graduating class from Bethel High School. I don’t know what year it is, 70 something, but they meet up here and have a mini-reunion and do their apple pie baking contest,” Wood said. “The Lacamas Community Fair brings the community together. I don’t mean just Roy. I mean Yelm, Graham, Spanaway — there’s people from Shelton. The fair brings people together to reconnect once a year. It’s really fun to see the families who haven’t seen each other reunite.”

Each year, the fair typically includes a fun lineup of activities for participants to enjoy, along with a wide assortment of different farm animals on exhibition. According to Wood, many attendees brought and showed their chickens on Saturday, the first day of the event.

“For me, it’s fun to see these families come out and enjoy the fair,” Wood said. “We have so many activities for people to do. We did the penny scramble, then we did candy bar bingo, and then we decorated cupcakes and had a watermelon eating contest. Today, we featured Lego building. It’s all free, and we love seeing families come in to enjoy the fair.”

Additionally, Wood said throughout last weekend she met many fair attendees and families who have previously attended and shown animals at the event. Hearing all the stories of different families’ previous participation in the annual event “makes it all worthwhile,” according to the fair manager.

“It makes all the hard work, the stress of getting everything together, trying to get judges — it makes it all worthwhile. You forget how tired you were trying to get everyone to get benches out and tents put up,” Wood said. “We would love to see more people get involved with the fair by coming and entering contests, or by coming and checking out what’s going on.”