By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com

"We're excited for Grand Island, but we're also excited for ourselves, too," said Evans, the executive director of the Aurora Area Chamber and Development Corp. "We definitely want to be able to tag onto whatever Grand Island is doing on the State Fair."

Evans was one of several community leaders in the area who were encouraged when the Legislature's Agriculture Committee voted on Monday to advance a bill designating Grand Island as the fair's future home.

Grand Island may be the only city involved in the proposal, but those officials see the fair as a potential boon to Central Nebraska, sending economic and cultural ripples for miles around.

Dee Haussler, executive director of the Hastings Economic Development Corp., compared the fair's potential regional influence to those of events such as Husker Harvest Days or the state high school softball championships in Hastings. Visitors to those events have spilled over into nearby towns.

"There's always overflow going to those neighboring communities," Haussler said. "We're really not looking at it on an individual basis at all. It's just good for Central Nebraska."

Both Evans' and Haussler's groups have written formal letters of support of the move to Grand Island. Evans said he'd expect a boost in retail for Aurora with the fair in Grand Island, especially with the town's Edgerton Explorit Center, Plainsman Museum and vibrant downtown square.

As the nearest major town to Grand Island on Interstate 80 for Omaha and Lincoln residents coming to the fair, Aurora could market itself as an ideal small town in which to make a stop, Evans said.

He said the fair could help in the city's ongoing efforts to bring in hotel and motel business as well.

"We have some room to grow there, and I definitely think that attracting lodging would be much easier with the State Fair nearby," Evans said.

A bit farther from Grand Island, Loup City Mayor Alicia Toczek said her area could benefit from lodging overflow as well as visitors taking a 45-mile detour to fish or boat at Sherman Reservoir.

She called the new fair proposal "a heck of an idea" and said the fair would draw many more Sherman County residents in Grand Island than Lincoln.

"With the price of gas these days, people think twice before going to Lincoln or Omaha," Toczek said.

They're not the only ones. LeRoy Jons, coordinator of the Loup Basin Resource Conservation & Development Council covering nine counties north and west of Grand Island, said a centrally located fair would open the event's doors to the western part of the state, much of which is a full day's drive from Lincoln.

He also said the fair could inspire return visits after a glimpse of the region's attractions, much like the effect of the RC&D's annual Junk Jaunt.

"It may give some exposure to this whole area that a lot of people don't know exists," Jons said.

Bethanne Kunz, executive director of Valley County Economic Development, also said more residents in the Ord area would attend the fair if it were in Grand Island.

Kunz said many of the people there who regularly go to the fair have children entered in events there, but a Grand Island fair would make for a much easier day trip, opening it up to more non-4-H and FFA devotees.

But most importantly, Kunz said, the committee's decision disproves the idea, commonly held among rural Nebraskans, that the state's leaders care little about anything west of Lincoln.

"I think this really shows that there is real interest in helping rural Nebraska," she said.