What the heck?

by K. Rian, Hamilton

The testimonies and personal accounts from the Ravalli Co Fair 2025 attendees have left a worse taste in the mouth than the air from the stock pens, and can leave us all asking, “What is going on in our community?” 

First there’s the vendor who after missing the drop-off deadline rammed open the west gate with her truck to enter the grounds after being told she was too late, and then afterward almost backed over a senior citizen in a wheel chair and a group of 4H children in her haste to get the truck out again. Witnesses state a 16/17yo boy didn’t like to be told that he needed to show a stamp for re-entry and in turn used vulgar language at a senior woman while at the same time aggressively poking her in the chest. Speaking of entry and violence, a man in his late 50s/early 60s tried to use a volunteer-vendor gate to enter the grounds and ended up using the gate to knock another senior woman volunteer backward into a pole all while yelling profanities at her because she tried to give him entry instructions. How about the group of young boys who surrounded the two 15yo females to taunt and PULL OFF their articles of clothing? 

And these are just the big stories, what about all of the others we have yet to hear about? Seems as though the Fair attracts the worst of the worst in our current local society (without even touching on that they were all white) and begs us to reflect on that if this is how these people act at the County Fair of all places toward senior citizens, women, and children, then we are no better (maybe worse) than any large crime riddled city. Rocks ≠ Glass Houses.