FAIR SECURITY TAKES ADDED EFFORT

FAIR HAPPENINGS: Above, Brian Miller, left, director of security for the SEMO District Fair, talks with Ron Jones, Jerry Wolsey and Dick Knaup about arrangements for moving the Clydesdales to Capaha Park for Monday's fair parade. More than 100 people are involved in security for the fair. At right, astronaut Linda Godwin rides in the fair parade as parade marshal.

A bustling new city opened for business this week in Cape Girardeau County. And as in any other new city, those in charge of the public's safety took a deep breath and got ready to keep order in and chaos out.

The city is the 1991 SEMO District Fair at Cape Girardeau. The fair, though it opened Sunday, officially kicked off Monday.

"Essentially running this thing is like running a city within a city the city of the Southeast Missouri District Fair so to speak," said the fair's director of security, Brian Miller, Monday. "Amazing things can happen; stuff that you'd never expect to be problems."

On a given day, Miller said, it's not unusual to have 10,000 to 20,000 people on the fair grounds. Sunday's estimated attendance came to 12,000, according to fair Publicity Chairman Gayle Hendrix.

The biggest problem at the fair is "lost parents," said Miller as he sat in the Cape Girardeau County Mobile Operations Center van, the focal point of the fair's security.

There's also the occasional fisticuffs and intoxicated person, said Lt. Dennis Dolan of the Cape Girardeau Police Department. The department handles the fair's internal and midway security and outside traffic flow.

"(There's) the usual things you'd have anywhere you have a large gathering of people, whether it's (Cape Girardeau) Riverfest or the fair," Dolan said.

As director of security, Miller said he coordinates the efforts of the fair's separate public safety agencies and services. In addition to the Cape Girardeau Police Department, that includes the efforts of fire safety officials and the fair's security firm, Wolsey Investigative Service Inc. of Chaffee.

The firm for the first time this year handles the fair's parking and overnight security, with some help from intermittent patrol car runs by the police department.

Jerry Wolsey, owner of the security firm, said he has 114 people working the fair as ticket takers and security and parking personnel. That's included with the police department's four to six officers who usually patrol the fair grounds from when they open until 8 p.m., when two to four officers are added until the fair closes.

So far, Wolsey said Monday evening, his security firm had experienced only minor traffic infractions. While he talked to a reporter at the fair's main gate on Kiwanis Drive, Wolsey kept busy directing traffic.

"It's starting to fall in place," he said of the fair. "We've got a large event here. Like Brian was saying, you've got a small city created for a week, day by day."

Dolan agreed with the characterization of the fair as a city within a city.

"Most of the people in here, your concession and carnival people, are self-supporting. They have their own campers, trailers. They just move in and camp here for a week."

Each year before the fair opens, the security personnel, accompanied by fair and county officials, walk through the midway to make certain the booths feature legitimate games of skill, rather than chance. During the walk-through, the games also are checked to assure they have no "socially unacceptable materials," Miller said.

Miller said the walk-through is done with representatives of the fair's carnival company, Farrow Amusement Co. of Jackson, Miss.; the police department; the Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney's office; and the fair board president.

The carnival representatives demonstrate how the games can be won, he said.

"We play all the games. If a bunch of dudes like us can win, any coordinated person could," Miller said.