Emporia ? Bill Ogg, manager of the Kansas State Fair since 1997, resigned on Tuesday after the fair board had a series of closed-door meetings, with no reason given for his abrupt departure.

The board, meeting at Emporia State University, went into closed session five times. Ogg left the building, accompanied by board member Bob Barker, moments before a brief open session at which the board announced that it had voted unanimously to accept his resignation.

The board was guided in its decision to accept the resignation by Camille Nohe, an assistant Kansas attorney general serving as its legal counsel.

Nohe said the Attorney General’s Office was not investigating Ogg, nor were there any allegations of illegal activity involving him, but he declined further comment.

Members of the board refused to say why Ogg resigned, and neither would he when he was reached at his home later by The Hutchinson News. Ogg, who made $80,000 a year, said he resigned with no immediate plans and no job prospects.

“The most important thing right now is for people to continue to support the Kansas State Fair,” he said.

Asked by the News if he had taken some lumber from the recently demolished horse barn at the fairgrounds in Hutchinson, Ogg said that his resignation “involves that, though it’s not entirely accurate.”

“All the materials that were allegedly missing were returned,” he said.

Ogg declined to provide additional details about the lumber or say if there were other problems at the fairgrounds that led to his decision to resign.

While declining to talk about the circumstances of the resignation, the president of the fair board, Mary Alice Lair, said Ogg would be missed.

“You always hate when things like this happen,” she said.

Lair later said the circumstances surrounding Ogg’s resignation forced the board to take “immediate action.”

The board, acting on a proposal from vice chairman Brad Rayl, approved a month’s severance pay for Ogg.

“He was my friend,” Rayl said after the meeting, fighting back tears. “I feel terrible. I feel bad for Bill, and I wish him every success in the world.”

The board went into a sixth closed session and then announced that Denny Stoecklein, the fair’s assistant manager, had been named interim manager.