Right now, youngsters are taking piglets and lambs home, gardeners are starting seeds and other competitors are also anxious to move on their projects anticipating this year's Big Butler Fair and the Butler Farm Show.

After more than five decades, that's not new. But the two summer events have changed.

“At the end of the day most of them are still after a blue ribbon,” said Jackie Bieber of Prospect, superintendent for the Big Butler Fair and the assistant superintendent of the floral department for the Butler Farm Show.

Bieber said many visitors today don't understand that the fair and the farm show are contests.

“That whole concept that it's a competition is lost on them. I hear that more each year,” Bieber said. “When they come in my building they think it's a farm market.”

Her fair responsibility is the Farm Products Building with its baked goods, canned goods, flowers, fruits and vegetables, hay and grain, photography, paintings and drawings, arts and crafts and stitchwork. She's been involved with the fair about 10 years.

Her farm show connection goes back to 4-H projects, mostly Holstein dairy cattle, starting when she was 10 years old.

“As a kid, going to the farm show and taking a camper was the family vacation,” Bieber said.

She has seen many changes in the farm products exhibits.

“People don't can like they used to. It's cheaper to buy the frozen food than to can it,” Bieber said.

She said fair organizers adjust the exhibit classes as exhibitor interests change.

“Now with digital photography becoming big, we have added categories that are specifically digital,” Bieber said.

Bieber believes there are fewer exhibitors now than there were in 1968.

“There's not as much appreciation for agriculture and where things come from,” Bieber said.

Mike Roenigk, president of the board of directors of the Big Butler Fair, said while the quality of exhibits and the style of showing at the fair have not changed, “It's harder and harder to get exhibitors.”

Roenigk said concessionaires still come, but they arrive with trailers. In 1968, they were all in tents.

The farm show infrastructure in 1968 was very different too, according to Ken Metrick of Mount Chestnut, the secretary on the board of directors for the Butler Farm Show. He oversees concessions and commercial exhibits and is an adviser for the junior board.

There were no paved roads at the show grounds, and Metrick said apart from three dairy barns and an agriculture building, everything else at the farm show was in tents.

“Even permanent electric, they used to put up strings and strings of light bulbs and take them down every year,” Metrick said.

He participated in FFA until age 21 and focused on agricultural production, especially raising steers and growing potatoes.

Metrick said machinery dealers were key to the farm show's beginnings when it started as a plowing contest in 1947. Popularity led to expansion and growth.

“They had tractor pulls in 1968 but they did not have modified tractors,” Metrick said.

Stock car football, the demolition derby and tractor trailer pulls came later.

Metrick said there are fewer equipment dealerships at the farm show now. Costs for staff and transporting farm equipment are high.

Gone are printed pages too. With wifi as part of the infrastructure, exhibitors bring laptops instead.Although there are less dairy and poultry exhibitors, there are more rabbit exhibitors, and Metrick said farm product exhibits have “grown by leaps and bounds.”There also are more commercial exhibits and more market livestock.“There are more kids showing livestock in Butler County today than there were 50 years ago,” Metrick said. “4-H has done a good job of promoting its program, it's more than livestock.”He said entertainment, including jugglers and animal shows, are an extra cost for the farm show, but they draw crowds.“Today's world, people need entertained. If we didn't have the midway rides that would take a big part of our crowd,” Metrick said.People also want convenience. Websites, Facebook pages, online ticket sales and a computerized office help meet that demand.“The (farm show) attendance since 1968 has more than doubled,” Metrick said.Roenigk remembers when people camped at the fair in barns, pickup trucks and horse trailers. Now there is a more modern campground.“A lot of people take their vacation fair week, especially people who have animals and such at the fair. They look forward to competing and seeing the people they haven't seen since last year,” Roenigk said.Metrick said, “The challenge is to keep it affordable and yet remain profitable for us. Our costs have gone up.”Farm show maintenance and upgrades for buildings, roads and other parts of the grounds, plus insurance are among those costs.Metrick estimates 50,000 to 60,000 people visit the six-day farm show.He said with more visitors, security is a greater expense. In 1968, the farm show had one entrance and one security guard. Now there are four entrances and as many as 18 guards.Roenigk said about 100,000 people came to the 2017 nine-day fair.Roenigk attributes the increase in visitors to varied events beyond agriculture including carnival activities and grandstand shows.