The special meeting of the Fair Board (Thursday 11/10) was originally scheduled to fill the vacant seat of Thomas Shaw, who resigned recently and also to elect officers. But then, the Fair Board ended up with 2 more vacant seats.
Matt Sullivan resigned, which was not a big surprise after the last regular meeting, but just a few minutes before the meeting, the resignation of Board President Doug Martin came in. His wife, junior fair coordinator Beth Martin, also resigned.
The Board accepted the resignations of Doug Martin and Matt Sullivan with only Heidi May and Dave Singer voting against it.
A discussion started about how to fill the vacant seats. Many of the large group attending the Board Meeting spoke in favor of getting Jerry Marker appointed, since he was the next high vote getter. This was already voted down in the regular meeting but the Board voted again on this issue, but the motion failed with 4-4. Zumbrink, Pearson, Lipps and Marla Werner vote for it, Jason Manning, Singer, May and Neff against.
Asked for the reason why they voted against it, Dean Neff said that he sees a conflict of interest, since Marker has the JM Ranch and with that he is a competition for the fairgrounds and could benefit from the information gained as a Board member. Other Borad members who voted no agreed.
After a discussion how to proceed and how to fill the vacancies, the Boards decided with a 6-2 vote to accept resumes to find candidates. Resumes have to be submitted by November 25th. Details will be published at the Darke County Fair’s website by November 11. At the meeting several attendants already showed their interest in a seat at the Board and will submit their application.
Appointed Board members will need to run in August.
The Board then chose Greg Pearson as President for the coming year, Jim Zumbrink as Vice-President and Dudley Lipps as treasurer. Rhonda William agreed to serve as interim junior fair coordinator.
But there were also good news: Jim Zumbrink shared the good news that Dave Niley will be inducted into the 2023 class of the Ohio Fairs Hall of Fame. Well deserved!