Calaveras County at the 2010 California State Fair

Calaveras County was awarded Gold for their booth at the 2010 California State Fair. “It’s always a great feeling to represent Calaveras County and come home with the Gold,” said Lisa Mayo, Executive Director of the Calaveras Visitors Bureau. “It’s a lot of hard work and a lot of coordination that pays off in the end.” The Awards Ceremony, which took place Wednesday afternoon at Cal Expo, was attended by several members of the Calaveras Visitors Bureau Board of Directors as well as volunteers and Calaveras Visitors Bureau staff.

This year’s state fair theme is “Your Passport to Adventure”, an easy theme to build a Calaveras exhibit around.  The focal point of the exhibit is a lifted yellow Jeep Wrangler with animated frogs peering out of it, looking at all the Calaveras adventure surrounding them. There’s even a baby frog that pokes his head out of a picnic basket. Once again this year the booth is being staffed by wonderful Calaveras volunteers.

Side view of the award winning booth design.

Mayo’s brother, Brett Loring, gave the presentation to the judges earlier in the week. The booth is judged on content, marketability, craftsmanship, agricultural attributes, creative use of products, produce and/or artifacts and technology and/or animation, special effects and experience.

Creating and building a booth for the State Fair is one of the largest marketing projects that the Calaveras Visitors Bureau takes on. With the help of State Fair veteran, Anna Davies of the Calaveras Winegrape Alliance and booth builder, Richard Bay, the exhibit is a true representation of the many adventurous, agricultural and historic attributes of Calaveras County. This year’s booth highlights Mark Twain and his contribution to Calaveras County. It is expected that close to one million people will attend this year’s fair.