Gates now open for 70th annual Porterville Fair

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The Porterville Fair is celebrating a milestone this year. On this 70th anniversary, the fair prides itself on fulfilling the need for community involvement through education.

"We feel very strongly in supporting the youth in the community throughout Tulare County. Because we have exhibits from throughout Tulare County, not just Porterville," said Fair Manager Susie Godfrey. "We've got a lot of great kids, we call them our barn babies."

The barn on the Porterville Fairgrounds has 900 exhibitors from community groups and schools from across Tulare County.

Each one showing off craft, agriculture or a livestock exhibit from 4H of FFA students.

Two Sequoia Union students showed off a pair of pigs that will be auctioned off this weekend.

The students took care of the pigs for the entire school year. "You have to feed him. Today at the fair we're feeding him Gatorade and then water," said Hank Newfeld. Classmate Colton Lang added, "Moving them around and getting them trained because they always want to go to their pig pool."

For the past ten years, opening day of the Porterville Fair is known as Physics Day.

Wednesday morning 7th and 8th-grade students applied everything they've learned about physics by getting on several amusement park rides with a special sensor for a class project.

"It collects data and records all the data from exhilaration, velocity and force," said Jared Marr of the Tulare Office of Education. "And we are going to email all that data to teachers. And when it gets back to the school site they can actually examine their first-hand data."

Over 35 thousand people are expected to attend the five day run of the fair. And for the first time in 15 years, there will be a concert Saturday night featuring Country music star Wade Hayes.