Hutchinson ? Bill Ogg, who resigned abruptly this week as manager of the Kansas State Fair amid controversy about lumber he took from a building due for demolition, said he had thought the wood was headed for a landfill.

The material was returned after the rancher who was awarded the contract to tear down the old horse barn complained, but Ogg resigned Tuesday after a series of closed meetings with the fair board.

Thursday, he told the Hutchinson News the board gave him the option of resigning or being fired.

He said he chose to resign and accept responsibility for creating an issue that brought “embarrassment on the fair and on the board and on the staff.”

“I hope I was dismissed for being stupid, and not dismissed for being dishonest,” Ogg said in the hourlong interview. He said he wanted to talk about circumstances of his departure although an assistant attorney general advised him and the board not to discuss it publicly.

Three members of the fair board’s executive committee sought legal guidance from Camille Nohe, an assistant attorney general, after Curtis Lindt of Murdock asked what had happened to some of the material he expected to be able to salvage from the horse barn. Murdock said he underbid the demolition project because of expectations to be able to salvage some of the lumber.

Ogg said he believed material from the building would be “bulldozed into splinters and hauled to the landfill.”

Lindt said the demolition contract specified that the fair would keep the horse barn roof and some electrical equipment, but that the rest was his to salvage.