Millses take competition to hilt

Jerri Mills has a mission: to get more children, and their families, to participate in the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee.

And anyone wondering about joining in need look no further than the lifelong county resident and several generations of her family for ways — and reasons — to be a part of the huge event each May.

She can tell you about the annual Kiddie Parade, Miss Calaveras Pageant, junior livestock events, entering homemade apricot jam and how to build an award-winning booth.

“Oh, in one form or another, about 60 years,” the Salt Springs Valley woman said when asked how long she has been taking part in fair events.

Mills was Miss Calaveras in 1963, directed the pageant for about seven years, doesn’t even try to guess the number of ribbons her preserves and baked goods have won, once worked at the fairgrounds, is now a director and treasurer for the Friends of the Fair support group, has a grandson showing a steer this year, a granddaughter showing goats, a husband helping at Sunday’s junior livestock auction and as of Wednesday was putting final touches on a family-farm theme booth she’s also done for the event.

Then there’s the unique photo her artistic daughter-in-law has entered, her son’s fair volunteer work and her sister’s preserves entries. The list goes on and on.

May, she acknowledges with a smile, is indeed hectic for her and her family. As the owner of Angels Sheet Metal, she’s busy anyway.

“I just like the family involvement,” she said, clearly indicating the missed sleep is a small price to pay for the fun she and her clan have. “I go every day of the fair and have for years.”

Mills said she also hopes that the many ways she and her family are involved with the huge event will inspire more families to take part in at least a few fair events. She remembers the many, many families around the county that once considered the fair as much of a must-do each year as Christmas and would like to see that attitude return.

Fair involvement also makes for good stories to tell in later years, anyone talking with Mills quickly learns.

She recalls, for example, how her mother, the late Dorothea Cooper, was in charge of the Copperopolis booth entered in the fair’s earlier years, when each of the county’s communities had a booth.

When Mills was in fourth grade, her mother was gathering grain stalks for the booth decorations when a rattlesnake bit her. But en route to the hospital, Cooper stopped to give a neighbor the grain to make sure the booth got done in time for the fair.

“That’s fair dedication,” Mills said, laughing. “That’s where I get it.”

Cooper was also a prolific maker of jams, jellies and other preserves, using fruits and vegetables she grew at the Salt Springs ranch her daughter was raised on and again lives at.

One year alone, her mother entered 139 various preserves, Mills recalled. She still has boxes full of the sweepstakes ribbons her mother won.

Mills’ two sons and two grandchildren have inherited that dedication from both sides of the family.

Husband David’s fair ties also go back generations; his grandfather, Carl Mills, was the fair’s first manager.  

Their son Darrin created the fair’s Cattleman’s Park and this year rounded up volunteers and reworked the fairgrounds main arena. The owner of Distinctive Metals, Darrin Mills has also helped build the new sign at the fairgrounds’ southern entrance.

Most recently, Mills said she has been active in Friends of the Fair to encourage more county residents to come to the fair and also to rebuild the fair’s reputation and finances in the aftermath of a carnival ride accident last year.

Twenty-three people were injured, the entire carnival section — a huge money source for the fair — was closed, and the incident drew widespread attention.

“I thought, yes, it was an accident, but I didn’t think the whole carnival should have been shut down,” Mills said. “A lot of people lost trust in the carnival.”

She said she believes the accident was isolated, blown out of proportion and wrongly cast a dim light on the whole event.

“There’s more to the fair than the rides ... I hope that people get past that and go and have a good time. It’s a family fair,” Mills said.

She noted granddaughter Kaili Mills, 6, who will be showing goats as a junior 4-H’er and with her grandmother’s help, has created a table-setting entry. These fair experiences will inspire more entries in coming years, the older Mills said.

“When my granddaughter gets a little ribbon for her table setting, she will be so thrilled, and she’ll be thinking about what she’ll enter next year,” Mills explained, adding that such an experience is probably the best reason for families to become fair families.