‘We want to be the best little fair possible’: NCW Fair respects tradition while staying up to date

WATERVILLE — The NCW Fair is the sort of fair where people can stroll through the barns of livestock entries and talk to their owners, take a leisurely look at the quilts and photographs in the arts and crafts building, check out the entries in the horticulture, food preservation and baking categories, and stop for a bite of fair food, maybe even one of the cinnamon rolls from the Douglas County Wheat Wives competition. (Oh man, those cinnamon rolls. They’re not only a tradition, for some people they’re one of the main attractions.) A small town fair, and that, said Carolyn Morley, the NCW Fair director, is fine with both the people who put it on and who attend it. “Our fair is a small fair, and the last seven years we’ve kind of leaned in on that,” Morley said. “It’s like that hometown county fair feeling. It just brings you back to your roots.”