CLARKSDALE – The St. Elizabeth Parish Fair celebrated 71 years of fun, school and parish commitment and community-wide participation Tuesday, Sept. 18.
A program from the third fair in 1940 indicates that Father Geoffrey O’Connell first proposed the event. Early fairs included a raffle for a bale of cotton, a barbecue night and the signature meatball and spaghetti supper as well as “nickleodian dances, competitive games and a cake and candy sale,” reads the program.
Currently the fair has one overall chairperson with many chairmen in charge of numerous game booths, horse rides, a silent auction, and the famous delicious “Delta Italian” spaghetti dinner – topped, of course, with yummy meatballs made by the ladies of the parish.
These days, cash has replaced cotton in the raffle. Ticket-holders vied for a $10,000 pot and numerous other prizes.
The Fair’s “coming together” takes months of planning and organizing, ordering booth prizes, cooking and praying for good weather.