PUEBLO — Thousands of people attend the Colorado State Fair every year, and many of the people there have unique ties and deep connections to this annual event.
Whether it is your first time or you have been here a long time, you'll find plenty to see and do at the fair.
The one month old piglets at the fair belongs to Carl Beeman, the Superintendent of the Children's Barn.
“It's a big part of our life,” Beeman said. “I'm 66 years old, and I'm almost 100% sure that I have never missed a state fair."
His family has been a part of the state fair for generations.
“My grandma won the first beautiful baby contest at the Colorado State Fair,” Beeman said.
This is his 44 year working at the fair.
“I just love it. I love to see the kids interact with the animals, and to me, it's very important that people learn about agriculture and how important agriculture is to them and this is a draw,” Beeman said.
He first started working with the fair when he became an educator.
“I started teaching agriculture and being the FFA Advisor at Pueblo County High School in 1981 and running the state fair was part of that job. Just the FFA Advisor is the supervisor of the state fair, Children's Barnyard. So, that's how I... really got involved, and did that for the 30 years that I was teaching. Then after I retired from teaching, the state fair kept me on to do the barnyard,” Beeman said.
Beeman plans his life around the state fair, including when to breed his animals.
“It's very hard to find a cow with a young calf this time of year. So, we started breeding all of our cows to calve in July and August,” Beeman said.
One of the children's favorites is watching baby chicks hatch from the incubator.
“We want to have baby chicks hatching throughout the fair. So, we set a few eggs 21 days before the fair starts, and then some more the next day, so that we should have baby chicks hatching every day of the fair. So people can see that going on too,” Beeman said.
It was in perfect time for the fair.
“I like to think that people walk out here and think, wow, how that's really cool that he gets to raise those and he knows so much about them,” Beeman said.
Across the fairgrounds is The All American High Dive Splashtacular. The entire high diving act surrounds a pool that is only 26 feet in diameter and nine feet deep.
“So if you're looking at it from the 80 foot tower, it doesn't look much bigger than a half $1 piece. It's pretty tiny,” Dana Kunze, the creator of this diving act said. “You've got to stop very quickly. It's a motion that we call scooping, and it's basically trying to use the length of the pool rather than the depth of the pool to stop, because, like I said, we're hitting a pool at 55-60 miles an hour.”
Kunze has years of experience in professional high diving.
“I won the world's high diving championship eight times. I set the world's record for the highest dive ever done seven times. And oddly enough, my last world record in 1983 is still the existing world record in all those years, no one's officially beat it,” Kunze said.
Kunze used to high dive in Denver at Elitch Gardens, but this is his first time at the fair.
“We've got a little bit of history with Colorado. First of all, we've got two or... three of our performers that are Colorado natives,” Kunze said.
The state fair brings new and old together, from the pen to the pool.
“We're going to have some fun. We're going to throw some water around out here. People are going to get cooled off, so come on out,” Kunze said.
Want a glimpse of the action? The All American High Dive show has performances every day of the fair.
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