Youth walking around with medals around their necks, friends from across the county catching up at events, buildings full of exhibits, parking lots full and grounds full of people, hard work and dedication recognized, the large numbers of clover kid and junior exhibitors in the beef and sheep shows, wonderful people working together to make the fair a success – these are all some of the memories etched in my mind from county fair this past week. In many ways, it may have been one of the best fairs I’ve experienced. I’ve never seen Ag Hall so packed full of exhibits nor the parking lots so full in the time I’ve been in York County! I think the theme of patriotism with “250 years of freedom, faith, and farming” contributed a lot to the excitement around fair this year.

This year was my 24^th county fair “on the other side” as an Extension Educator. There’s many fond memories from each county I’ve served in with fairs. The consistent things with each of the fairs has been the wonderful people to work with and the life skills being built by youth.

There’s so many people behind the scenes who make the fair happen. Special thanks to all the Ag Society members and their families, Extension staff and families, 4-H Council and families, and the large numbers of volunteers who make fairs a success! In Ag Hall alone, we have around 45 volunteers and I’m so grateful to each of them! Gary Zoubek asked 40 of them how many years they have been volunteering and they have a combined 669 years of volunteerism! We couldn’t run a fair without volunteers helping with judging exhibits, livestock shows, taking tickets at events, and in the food stand. We’re always seeking volunteers, so please contact the Extension Office if you’re interested.

A fun fact, one of the most favorite 4-H food stand items are the rice Krispie treats. What most don’t realize is there’s often someone in the Extension office making them or baking pies behind the scenes throughout the day each day. I wish I had a photo of our office after all the rice Krispie boxes and marshmallows were bought from two local grocery stores in town! One member of our office made 8 large batches of rice Krispie treats during the swine show alone and I have no idea how many total were made during fair! Thank you again to all who helped make the county fair a success!

Yield Forecasts: I wasn’t able to get in the fields this week, but a new CropWatch article was released on yield forecasts at: https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2026-corn-yield-forecasts-aug-4/. The Hybrid Maize model is used which considers 30 years of historical weather data for an area and estimates the potential corn yield based on the current year’s weather data compared to previous years’ data. While these are only forecasts, they can provide a prediction on what to expect, barring any significant weather or pest damage to fields. For the Clay Center/York area this year, it’s predicting:

• near- or below-average irrigated yields because of high nighttime temperatures during flowering and early grain filling.
• Rainfed yields are expected to be near average for the eastern and central Corn Belt, but below average for most of the western region. 
• Temperature and rainfall during the rest of the grain filling will define the trend for the rainfed sites across the region.