A little over three weeks ago, Big Tex began Howdy Folks’ing millions of people into Fair Park. We’re a year out from presumably thousands of those people sitting in their cars for hours to get a corny dog and a sniff of normal. This year was different. It really was normal. More than 2.2 million people poured into Fair Park over the 24 days of the State Fair, which had been on essentially a two-year hiatus. The fair came armed with all sorts of data points this Monday: more than 1,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots were given out, about 520,000 Fletcher’s Corny Dogs were pulled from the fryers, the Midway awarded over $1 million worth of plush prizes (which is surely a fraction of what was invested to win said plush prizes), and almost 20,000 pounds of fresh produce were donated to South Dallas and surrounding neighborhoods.
Sounds like a good time. I went twice. Photographer Jason Janik was there far more often, taking photos each day for us. Take a look—they’re in the gallery attached to this post.
