Photo courtesy of Kim Konkol Kim Konkol (center) at the Murray county fair

SLAYTON — The Murray County fair held at the fairgrounds in Slayton, located adjacent to the Murray County High School is held in the middle of August every year. 

The Murray County fair has been around for over 100 years, starting around 1912, with some off years during war years and then again with COVID.

The fair is estimated to bring around 10,000 people every year, all eager for a pork burger, to watch the races or see the 4-H animals, and walk around all the vendor booths. 

“We don’t have any trouble filling our vendor spots and typically have a waitlist. We just try to bring in some variety.” shares board secretary Kim Konkol. 

Unique to the small-town fair is that “guests don’t pay at the gate. They don’t pay for any of the entertainment under the tent,” 

Allowing the fair to be free is a big point of pride for the fair board members–it’s funded by a combination of sponsorships from local businesses, state grants, as well as funds allocated by the county commissioners. 

“I think our biggest obstacle is being able to find good entertainment with the budget we have to work with, so we really rely on our sponsors and our county commissioners so much,” Konkol said.

She’s currently working on the sponsorship flyer and getting that ready to go.

“It’s a full year round job, because you’ve got something you have to do every quarter,” she said.

 Kim has been attending the fair since she was a senior in high school when she moved to Slayton from Sioux Falls.

“That was back in the carnival days, and I really wasn’t involved in 4-H myself, I was a town kid. We didn’t really have 4H for town people at that time, so I never participated in baking or sewing or any of that,” she said.

Now, 50 years later she’s planning her class’ 50th reunion and amazed at how many opportunities the 4-H club as well as the open class divisions brings to local kids and adults for both in town and country kids. 

“I think it’s well over 2,000 entries between the animals and the crafts and things that they build and make.” 

Konkol has been the fair board secretary for over 10 years but still considers herself the “newbie” of the group.

“It’s been wonderful to work with such a dedicated board,” says Konkol. “There is a lot to learn and everyone pitches in” 

She’s lived with the fair practically in her backyard for many, many years.

“We always lived behind the fair, so I could just walk out my backyard and I was there,” she said.

Eventually, she began to be interested in taking a larger role in the fair.

“I would always see the board members running around, and I said to them at one point, what do you have to do to get a red shirt?” 

Shortly afterwards, the previous board secretary became county commissioner and could no longer serve on the fair board, so she volunteered for the position and now wears that red shirt proudly. 

Now “supposedly retired” employee from Minnwest Bank, she finds being on the fair board still fills up a lot of her time, 

“I have a wonderful husband, we’ve almost been married about 50 years and he tells me that I ‘voluntold’ him to do a lot of things, so he’s a friend of the fair, whether he knows it or not…I couldn’t do this job without his support. So, to me, that is my biggest accomplishment — he’s willing to let me volunteer my time.” 

Kim has three kids and all have grown up with the fair in the backyard, loving going to the fair every summer. Now she loves being able to take her grandkids over to the fair. Their favorite part is “definitely the animals…and a corn dog.”

Kim and her husband moved this year from behind their beloved fairgrounds to the other end of town, where she and her kids and grandchildren would sit in the backyard and “feel like we are at the farm with all the animals and activity going on during fair time” 

“So it’s going to be a new experience for me, she says, “not being able to just walk back and forth from home.”

What won’t have changed is the feel of the fair, and the people who come together. Kim shares:

“I love all the people. I love seeing all the people come…I love the way the community comes together to support all events and peoples,” she said.