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Boone County Fairgrounds gets new name

The Boone County fair in Columbia, Mo.
Mr. Shiv
/
Flickr
The Boone County fair in Columbia, Mo.

As part of its regular meeting, the Boone County Commission held a second public hearing Tuesday night about renaming the Boone County Fairgrounds.

The Central Missouri Event Center, Home of the Boone County Fair is officially the new name of the Boone County Fairgrounds. The Boone County Commission swiftly approved it at last night’s meeting. Though that part of the hearing was open to public comment, no one showed up to either object or support the name change.

“Well I think the new name does two things, it identifies the location and what it is.”

That’s Presiding Commissioner Dan Atwill, he said the new name more accurately represents what the fairgrounds are—that is, they host a lot more than just the county fair.

And the fairgrounds will be seeing more than just a name change. A new lighting project is in the works. This is due to Commissioner Karen Miller, who resides over the southern part of the county. She’s worked to obtain funds the state had from the American Recovery Act that weren’t being used by other communities. The plan is to change out the current lights to T5 lights which are brighter and more environmentally friendly.

“And so we were able to come to an agreement on about a 25 thousand dollar replacement of all the lights in the basement and the office and front coliseum area and in the arena area and so we’re pretty excited about being able to change it out and make it more energy efficient,” she said.

As for how soon this will happen, Miller says the contract is waiting to be signed and they expect to start developing bid proposals as soon as next week.

Scarlett Robertson joined KBIA as a producer in February 2011. She studied psychology at Lake Forest College and holds a masters degree in journalism from Syracuse University. Scarlett began her professional career in psychology, jumped to magazines and then came to her senses and shifted to public radio. She has contributed to NPR member stations WAER in Syracuse, KUT in Austin and Chicago’s WBEZ.