The Carbon County Fair Board held its July meeting on Friday evening at the Gnaden Huetten Memorial Hospital community room to go over the final preparations for the fair.

This would be the second to last meeting before the fair begins.The main goal for the 26 board members in attendance was to assure that everything was ready and in place.On the advertisement side, the fair is being advertised on billboards in three locations, with one more going up by Route 248 in Parryville.Members were asked to share posts from the Carbon County Fair's Facebook page, as well as sending invites to friends for the page itself to create more awareness. The idea was also brought up to offer a prize to Facebook users as a way to get more likes on the fair's page. Currently at about 1,500 likes, the board is considering giving a free shirt to the 2,000th person to like the Facebook page.Plans were made for the setup days, which are scheduled for Aug. 1 and 2. After some deliberation, it was also decided to also use July 31 for setup to ensure t there will be enough time to prepare everything. This is also the day that the tents are scheduled to go up, but the plan is to wait until the afternoon to set up after the tents are in place. Marking vendor spots and weed removal also needs to be done.Carbon County Fair Board President Bob Silliman stressed the need for more volunteers on the weekend."Now is the time to get us some help. We really need it. Anyone you know who can help, give them a call," Silliman said to the directors at the meeting.It was announced that the Carbon County Fair Queen and Junior Miss Carbon County Fair judging occurred Monday. This year has four candidates for fair queen and three junior candidates. The winners of both programs will be announced at 6 p.m. at the opening ceremony of the fair on Aug. 3.A suggestion was made regarding the organization of the tractor judging. The request was to have labels with each tractor, saying its year, model and owner, to make judging easier. The tractors may also be moved from their original spot, depending on how many hit-and-miss engines are brought to be judged.After receiving some suggestions from fair patrons last year, there will now be more benches near the kids' rides.The fair board will hold one last meeting before the fair at 6 p.m. July 31 at the fairgrounds.