WRAL-TV in Raleigh reports today that a new midway operator, Wade Shows, has won the bid for the 2005 North Carolina State Fair — the fourth midway operator in four years, after the decades-long incumbent was ousted by the Meg Scott Phipps administration at the N.C. Department of Agriculture, itself an interesting series of transactions which led the Ag Commissioner from the state cabinet to the state prison.
Although WRAL mentions there is “grumbling” about the decision, talk radio WPTF-AM yesterday had the actual comment from the former carnival provider — “I said that Wade would get the contract because I knew they hadn’t had a belly full of it yet.”
Not the way to impress potential customers in the new Agriculture administration, sir.
