Steele fairgrounds crew learns together all summer long

When Scott Seykora returned to Owatonna to work as a teacher, his long-time friend Josh Prokopec asked if he’d like to help on the grounds crew at the Steele County Free Fair.

Now Prokopec oversees buildings and grounds as a fair board member, and Seykora manages the team Prokopec joined as a teenager. Since May, workers have been getting the fairgrounds in shape to greet thousands of fairgoers Aug. 16-21.

“We’ve got seven full-time guys out here, all here 40 hours a week,” Seykora said. “Every building on the grounds gets touched sometime during the summer.”

The work actually starts in May, when a group of college students arrive. Seykora, who teaches art at Owatonna High School (OHS), and his students can’t get started until school’s out in June

“We do everything from shingling buildings, putting in windows, we build buildings… you name it, we’ve done it,” he said. “It gives kids experience with a lot of different things every day.”

The grounds crew also works hand-in-glove with all of the people who help make the fair run, Seykora added.

This year, they’ve fixed a slope so that water drains properly in front of the Mother’s Rest area and made a new entrance for the grandstand shows, which required pouring a new cement sidewalk.

The grounds crew also works for non-fair events. Seykora said they prepped and cleaned up before the Big Sky National Cutting Horse Association shows held last month, as well as a celebration hosted by Federal Insurance. Workers put out 114 picnic tables for that event.

“We used to borrow those,” he said. “Now we’re able to provide (tables) for people who want to rent out the grounds.”

As they’re preparing for the fair, Seykora said, the crew calls the grounds “our little island, where we’re free to drive around.” Once fair preparation starts, though, they’re working on requests for more pressing repairs or improvements needed to buildings, from repainting and repairs to new building projects.

And when the fair is over?

“Number one, we start on the barns and get all the animal waste out,” he said. “We get everything picked up from different areas, bags from under the grandstand. We put up close to 50-60 signs…those have to come down.”

The grounds crew has also built nine portable buildings over the years that are all stored to protect them from the weather.

With all that work to be done, the crew really bonds over the summer, Seykora said. Last year, they all worked together on re-siding the Great Outdoors Center; this year, they are mostly working in pairs on smaller projects.

Either way, he said, “You gotta trust each other.”

Working with Seykora is part of what has kept C. W. Wolfe coming back to the crew for around 13 years. They’ve coached lacrosse together at OHS.

But Wolfe also just enjoys the whole fair atmosphere.

“There’s just nothing like it around here,” he said.