At Parker's County Fair, the Cotton Candy Ran Out

In the fall of 2021 the sophomores were ready. One was running the shift schedule and had spent weeks on it. One was running decor: "We ordered 700 balloons, we ordered fog machines, we ordered chalk." Then COVID cases rose in the lower and middle schools, and a week before the October date, the fair was moved to the spring. The scheduler told The Parker Weekly she was "annoyed."

Seven hundred balloons and fog machines. A sophomore looked at a school fair and decided it needed weather. I have never had that ambition for anything, including my own wedding.

On May 27, 2022, the fair came back, themed "Everything Blue and White, Celebrating 120 Years!," in scattered rain. One of the two longtime sophomore grade heads said it was "almost identical" to the fairs before the pandemic, and then handed the job on to new teachers after ten years with a farewell: "Big-Lee had a good run."

A junior covered the food for the paper, with a mission statement: "I Ate Every Food I Saw at County Fair." The lines were enormous; there were more people in line for cotton candy, she reported, than seniors who actually showed up at the fair.

An hour in, she noticed the cotton candy line had disappeared and rushed over. They had run out. "What cotton candy stand runs out of cotton candy?"

That is the most important question in American journalism, and a junior asked it.

Determined to review it anyway, she found a sophomore who had tried it and pronounced it fluffy and flavorful. She then disclosed, with scruples many professional critics lack, that she was skeptical of this source's ability to be unbiased, since the sophomore had made the cotton candy and run the booth. The snow cones got a one-line review: "No complaints, but also no oozing compliments."

I have been the parent volunteer at a school fair booth. I ran the ring toss. A girl asked me whether the ring toss was fair, and I told her it was completely fair, and she said I would say that, because I was running it. She was eight. Parker would have hired her for the paper.