CAROLINE, Va. —
Mark Lovell, the Tennessee businessman who bought the State Fair of Virginia, took his time coming to Thursday’s formal announcement of his company’s partnership with the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.
Lovell and his wife, Linda, rode from Memphis to Caroline County on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. They were part of a 1,000-mile, three-Harley caravan that steered clear of interstate highways, making overnight stops in Cumberland Gap and Hillsville, then taking the Blue Ridge Parkway for much of the last day of the ride.
Thursday, the three bikes were parked in front of the stately mansion at Meadow Event Park, where the fair will be held Sept. 28 through Oct. 7. Lovell and Virginia Farm Bureau President Wayne F. Pryor talked about the upcoming fair and the future of the site.
Lovell listed events he hopes to hold at the park. At the top of the list is a 40th-anniversary celebration next year of Secretariat’s legendary 1973 triumph in horse racing’s Triple Crown.
Lovell said he is planning an annual music festival and an annual motorcycle rally. He wants to organize a monthly flea market and to make the park available for weddings and corporate meetings.
He said he wants to build an equine center with 140 more stalls not far from the stable where Secretariat was born.
But the State Fair, just 70 days away, is the immediate focus for Lovell and his new partners.
Among the events his company organizes are fairs in Georgia and Washington state, and Lovell said the state fair will be “clean, safe and family friendly,” as the other events are.
“We’ll have great entertainment, great attractions, great rides,” Lovell said. He said the fair will have livestock exhibitions, produce displays and traditional arts and crafts such as cakes and pies, jams and jellies, quilts and needlework.
“People need to … come make memories with the family,” he said.
Lovell has members of his Memphis crew on the Virginia job — Brian Ellsworth has moved to Virginia to take the reins as the State Fair’s general manager — and has hired four former State Fair of Virginia staffers to help prepare for the event.
“We’re down the road pretty good,” Lovell said of preparations for the fair’s opening. “As soon as I bought it, we went to work.”
Asked if the fair would go on without a hitch, he replied, “There are always hitches.”
The Farm Bureau’s Pryor said the partnership provides the perfect venue for his organization, a statewide agriculture advocacy group, to showcase Virginia farming.
“When I look at these horse barns, these cornfields … the bales of hay across the road — if this is not a fit for the Farm Bureau, I don’t know what would be,” he said.
Lovell’s suburban Memphis firm, Universal Fairs LLC, bought the State Fair for $5.67 million at a May bankruptcy auction. It then sold a half-interest to the Farm Bureau to form Commonwealth Fairs and Events LLC, which will manage the fair and the 331-acre park. Terms of the sale to form the partnership were not disclosed.