Hutchinson ? It started out like any other morning at the Kansas State Fair, with vendors hawking their wares and competitors preparing prize livestock for judging.

That quickly changed as word spread of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. The happy faces of fairgoers were replaced by looks of gloom and despair. Many walked around almost in a trancelike state.

Grandma’s prize-winning apple butter was suddenly the last thing on anyone’s mind.

“Everybody was walking around staring, like, ‘What can we do?”‘ Sonia Farthing, who supervises the food judging, recalled of the scene at the fairgrounds on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Then it got dead. People had to get home to get to their TVs. The fair came second,” she added.

Denny Stoecklein, assistant fair manager, said some thought was given to closing the fair. But the idea was rejected.

“We thought it was important to continue, celebrating living in this country, because the fair is a compilation of everything American,” Stoecklein said.

He said the 2001 edition ended with gross revenues down about $750,000 from the previous year, largely because of a 20 percent drop in attendance attributed to the attacks.

This year, the fair is back in business, but with patriotic overtones at almost every turn as the anniversary of the attacks is observed Wednesday.

In many ways, the fair is providing a diversion from talk of terrorism and rumors of war.

“There is kind of a feeling of simplicity, a simpler time where there was more trust in the world,” Stoecklein said.

Patriotic theme

Even so, there were ample reminders of the real world throughout the fairgrounds during the weekend.

Scores of fairgoers wore T-shirts emblazoned with the American flag and “God Bless America” and similar sentiments.

One exhibitor handed out paper fans with a picture of the flag, and another was giving away T-shirts that had a flag on the front with “As American As … ” followed by dozens of example such as “Fourth of July” and “apple pie.”

Fair officials are doing their part, too.

Wednesday will be “Patriots Day,” marked by a morning memorial service, a Red Cross blood drive and a display of emergency vehicles.

“We want to let people see this equipment up close and see what they work with on a daily basis,” Stoecklein said.

Last year, the nightly concert was canceled Sept. 11 because the grounding of planes nationwide kept Dream, the featured act, from reaching Hutchinson.

“We just didn’t have a show that night, and people understood,” Stoecklein said.

This year, the featured attraction Wednesday night will be The Charlie Daniels Band and a fireworks show.

A way of remembering

Even Wednesday’s food contests will have a patriotic flair.

At the Domestic Arts Building, Farthing talked about how she came up with the idea for a contest of patriotically themed cakes, cookies and similar items. Expected will be dozens of items in shapes of flags and eagles and lots of red, white and blue icing and frosting.

“I wanted to do something to acknowledge September 11th,” she said, noting that it was partly personal: “I have a friend in New York who worked at the World Trade towers. He was OK, but it took him three days to get home.”