ROME TOWNSHIP — There is a new chief of the Lawrence County Fair Board after Jim Gore was elected president in a board meeting Thursday night.

The fair board had to pick a new leader after former president Freddie Hayes was recently appointed to the Lawrence County Commission. The commission is the only county office where members cannot hold offices in other county agencies.

“Jimmy will make you a good leader,” Hayes told the board. “I appreciate everybody being here and hope you continue to do good work. (Commissioner) Bill (Pratt) and I will try to get to all the meetings. I hope you all will stick together like you did for me. Sometimes we didn’t agree, but we get along.”

Replacing Gore, who had been vice president of the board, will be Lawrence County Clerk of Courts Mike Patterson.

“The reason I wanted to step in and help out was just to keep everything moving forward,” Patterson said after the meeting. “I think Freddie Hayes has done so many improvements. I want to have one of the best fairgrounds in the state of Ohio. If we keep working like this, we can.”

Also at Thursday’s meeting, Wayne Taylor was elected treasurer, a post also held by Hayes. Associate directors Mike Harper, Chris Collier and Kenny Sites were elected to the board of directors with soon-to-be county prosecutor Brigham Anderson, 4-H adviser Larry Kirkpatrick and Sheriff Jeff Lawless named honorary directors.

Right now the fair board is coordinating the construction of a new barn and arena to be built before fair week that starts July 8. Originally the new structure was to be located near the former horse barns on the Fairland Middle School side of the fairgrounds.

However, the barn will now be near the grandstand and the road leading into the fairgrounds off the second gate on County Road 243.

“It wouldn’t fit on that other end,” Gore said. “It was too big for that end of the field.”

The pre-engineered structure is expected to be delivered to the fairgrounds by April 13 with concrete footers to be poured in the first part of that month.