Tiffany DeWitt said a racist comment directed toward her 9-year-old African-American daughter Brooklyn inspired an “American Girls of All Nations” entry in the Southeast Alaska State Fair Wearable Art Show.

Brooklyn’s friends include Kate and Allison Benda, two sisters with Thai heritage; Scarlette and Isabelle Alamillo, who are of Russian and Mexican descent; and Natalie Grant, an Alaska Native.

“I started thinking, ‘You guys have the greatest heritages. You should celebrate them,’” DeWitt said in an interview last week while she and Brooklyn sewed elephant-patterned fabric to make a robe patterned after ones worn at local performances of the African Children’s Choir.

Using mostly salvaged fabrics, DeWitt also is making outfits for the Alamillo sisters and the Benda girls. Grant will don Tlingit regalia. The girls will be led by Marissa Verhamme, an “all-American-looking blonde” waving U.S. flags, and each will walk the runway while a song from their ancestral lands plays, DeWitt said.

They’ll finish on the stage dancing to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

DeWitt said she hopes the audience will appreciate a message of tolerance and respect for different cultures represented in Haines. “I just want the girls to be comfortable on stage. I think it will be very entertaining, to say the least.”

The fair starts at noon Thursday, but fair employees will be hard at work this weekend, judging exhibit entries and making last-minute improvements to the grounds, including setting up rides during a volunteer work party 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Volunteers should bring work gloves; the fair will provide tools and snacks.

Volunteers also are needed to operate rides and ticket gates during the fair.

Using the new computerized entry option, the fair already has seen 159 entries from 63 exhibitors, said fair events coordinator Deana Stout. (A story in the July 7 CVN mistakenly reported a fee for entering exhibits online It’s free.)

“We have 14 boxes of exhibits just from Ketchikan and five from Sitka. We have more coming up from Petersburg but they’re coming up on (town representative Josef Quitslund’s) boat. He’s done that a couple times,” Stout said.

Perishable exhibits must be entered at Harriett Hall no later than 1 p.m. Saturday, July 23. They’ll be accepted there 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, July 22, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, July 23. Exhibits of crops, vegetables, flowers and baked goods will be accepted 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, July 27.

Fair executive director Jessica Edwards said she’s hoping to see an uptick in crops and produce entries due to this year’s early spring and good growing conditions. Experienced gardeners say many plants have matured about a month ahead of schedule.

“Maybe this is the Southeast fair’s chance at having giant produce,” Edwards said.

It depends on the crops, said George Figdor, a gardener who will judge produce at the fair. Green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and corn are growing especially well this year, he said. “Southern California desert crops are doing well. We should be growing avacados. My late onions are as early as my early onions used to be, so everything is accelerated.”

Long days and relative lack of rain, however, are tough on cool-weather crops like lettuce and kale, which go to seed earlier in dry conditions. “Plus you spend two to three times as much time watering,” Figdor said.

Kate Boesser, librarian for the town of Gustavus and the fair’s representative there, said fair exhibits from that community include dolls, pottery and American sign language booklets made for youngsters, created at the Gustavus School. There are also student sculptures from a workshop led by Southeast Alaska artist Lou Cacioppo.

Boesser, who restores carousel horses as a hobby, said she’s been coming to the fair since she was 6 and is now bringing her grandchildren. “I love coming to the fair. I’d come just to ride the carousel,” she said.

New additions to the fair this year are a beach wrestling tournament Friday at the fair volleyball court. Andrew Cardella, who helps coach Haines High School wrestling, is organizing the event. He said there are simple rules for the friendly competition and no experience is necessary.

The auction of exhibits in baked goods returns this year. It will be held between Thursday’s square dance and the Southeast’s Got Talent talent show.

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