The Iowa State Fair Board, which voted Wednesday to postpone this year’s state fair until 2021 represents all corners of the state, with one of its members from Guthrie County.

Guthrie Center resident C.W. Thomas says the Board discussed daily over the last 60 days on all the different aspects of the fair and the possibilities of still hosting the state’s biggest annual gathering with the COVID-19 pandemic going on. Thomas said one primary aspect of not holding this year’s fair was the difficulty of hosting grandstand entertainment while also abiding by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Iowa Department of Public Health’s guidelines. Thomas was one of the 11 Board members who voted in favor of the postponement, “We just could not make it really feasible to have a venue and charge for it and still have people feel like they had a good time at the fair. So we just felt like we just better cancel it and keep our hopes up for a bigger and better one in 2021.”

Thomas points out that the 4-H and FFA youth livestock shows are still under review, though the static exhibits have been cancelled.