Having a fair time
Published 9:28 am Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Norm Fredin, manager/secretary of the Freeborn County Fairgrounds, uses his personal golf cart to save time as he travels around the North Bridge Avenue location as a part of his duties during the year. -- Ed Shannon/Albert Lea Tribune
Prairie Profile: Norm Fredin
Freeborn County’s Fair is called the Six Best Days of Summer. Yet, managing this annual event and the fairgrounds is a full-time challenge and involves many other activities during the rest of the year.
The person who has been the manager/secretary of fairgrounds operations since 1999 is Norm Fredin.
He isn’t one to mince his words. His comments about the 127th annual county fair held early this month were: “The fair went very well. We had good crowds, good entertainment and the Budweiser horses were really special. However, attendance was down about 5 percent because of the hot weather.”
The office for the Freeborn County Fairgrounds is located in the building just to the south of the grandstand. From his office in this building Norm Fredin manages the fairgrounds operations on a full-time year-round basis. -- Ed Shannon/Albert Lea Tribune
Other events at the fairgrounds this month included the Relay for Life, the Minnesota Mounted Shooters North Central Regionals and last weekend’s Big Island Bar-B-Que, plus the Minnesota-Iowa Arabian Horse Show.
Fredin added that coming up are pancake breakfasts, tool auctions, a camper rally, household auctions, wedding receptions, rummage sales, special events in the Fairlane Building, a pigeon show, the Vintage Pride snowmobile contest and even parking for the Big Island Rendezvous at the fairgrounds in early October. During the winter months the buildings are used to store vehicles and other items. A sometimes overlooked aspect about the fairgrounds is the land provides a campground for recreational vehicles.
“The place is busy, but I enjoy it. I’m doing this for fun,” is how Fredin describes his present position.
Fredin grew up near Comfrey, a town in Brown County about 36 miles southwest of New Ulm. After graduating from Comfrey High School, he went to what was then Iowa State College in Ames.
His first job after graduating from college was at Glenville High School as the vocational agricultural teacher for 15 years. Fredin then worked for Land O’Lakes as salesman in the feed and agronomy division. This was followed with 15 years as an instructor at what was then Albert Lea Area Vocational Technical Institute. He also owned the Holiday Park Golf Course east of Hayward for two years.
Fredin became a member of the board of the Freeborn County Agricultural Society (the fair board) in 1995 and replaced Howard Recknor as manager/secretary in 1999.
There’s one aspect of fair week that doesn’t really involve Fredin. He said Merle Krause lines up the talent featured as part of Entertainment Square. And he commented that “the fair board gets the entertainers” for the grandstand shows.
Age: 76
Address: 1704 Bay Oaks Drive, Albert Lea
Livelihood: manager/secretary for the Freeborn County Fair
Family: wife, Joyce; daughters Cindy and Rene; four granddaughters
Interesting fact: He was a teacher at Glenville High School for 15 years.
