Liz Beals has been selling candy at ’s firemen’s fair for 36 years.
In 1976, when she started, the candy was a penny. Now, it is between a nickel and a quarter.
“Inflation,” she said, laughing.
Beals said she has volunteered at the fair for the past five decades because she likes it, and she likes giving back to her community. Her children grew up going to the fair, and they still catch it when they can.
“It is a family affair,” she said. “When my kids come home to visit, they ask when the fair is going to be and they try to go home then so they go to it.”
Friday was the first day of the 84th annual firemen’s fair, which featured food, carnival games, fire truck rides and even the dunking machine. This evening the fair runs again, beginning at 5:30, and firemen will serve the famed ham and baked bean dinner.
The fair is ran by the Goshen Fire Company and the Goshen Fire Women's Auxiliary, which is filled of volunteers like Barbara Keck. Keck helps at the fair as a way to give back to the Goshen Fire Company, which has helped her when she needed it most.
Twice, Keck needed an ambulance at 2 a.m. after she fell, and twice Goshen volunteer firefighters answered the call and brought her to the hospital. To her, that’s what the community is all about, and the firemen’s fair is just an extension of that.
“It is within our neighborhood and we should help be part of it,” Keck said.
