EAGLE, Colo. – Oftentimes, a group of five people has a difficult time coming up with a consensus.
But the Eagle County Fair and Rodeo’s advisory board does that more often than not. When Loyd Gerard, Ed Oyler, Brent Scott, Earn Mooney and Hanna Albertson gather on a monthly basis, they have a way of working things out, and that’s a benefit to the county’s exposition, set for Wednesday, July 25-Saturday, July 28, at the Eagle County Fairgrounds.
“With the collaboration of the fair staff, we garner sponsorships, plan our specialty acts and work on ticket pricing, among other things,” said Albertson, the council’s chairwoman. “Our monthly meetings take about an hour and a half, and we all have our specialties that take our time.
“But the thing that separates us is we take all of our pieces and bring them together as a group. I think that’s what makes us special.”
It is, because they work for a common cause: Making the best county fair possible for the thousands that pass through the fairgrounds gates.
“They’re the ones that select everything that takes place at the fair and rodeo,” Fair Manager Tanya Dahlsied said. “We, as the staff of Eagle County, works as a huge team with the advisory council.
“The advisory council is very hands on, and I think that’s good. There are a handful of employees that average 75 to 80 hours that week. The council, which is made up of volunteers, put in a good 60-plus hours that week. It takes a lot of work, but they’re not afraid of it.”
The benefits come through the smiles on faces and the large crowds that take in the nightly rodeo. In fact, all four performances of the rodeo are typically sold out. But there are so many facets to making the fair and rodeo successful, and all five members of the council work with the staff to make it happen.
“We all have different personalities and different passions,” Albertson said. “But we all really respect each other, which is the key to why we’re successful as a group. We take what we’re all good at, and we just use them to make a better fair and rodeo.
“At the end of the day, we all want the absolute best for the fair and rodeo. We’ll put millions of ideas on the table, and we don’t always agree, but we always come up with a solution in the end.”
This will be the last fair week for Oyler and Scott, whose terms end this year. That means the advisory board will be looking for two more to add to the mix to begin planning for the fair and rodeo in the future.
“I am very proud of this group and to have the opportunity to work with each of them,” Dahlsied said. “They have really good insight, and they really care about the event.”
That’s the meaning of a collaboration, and the fair and rodeo’s advisory council is the epitome of it in Eagle County.