By JOEL STROTTRUP - Princeton Union Eagle 

Gene Gerth of rural Princeton, who died unexpectedly Nov. 22 at age 66, left a vacant spot on several local and state boards and organizations besides the void he left in his family.

Among the flowers for his funeral was an arrangement sent by the Sheraton Hotel in Bloomington. It turns out that the hotel is where the Minnesota Federation of County Fairs has been conducted for “many, many years,” according to a spokesperson at the hotel this week. Gerth had been a 14-year member of the federation.

Another flower arrangement came from Midwest Machinery, which carries John Deere farm equipment. Gerth, a longtime farmer, was a natural fit for supervising the annual Mille Lacs County Fair tractor pull.

Gerth’s farming connection also showed up in some of the boards he was on, one being the Princeton Co-op Association board he had served on for about eight years.

A turnout of Princeton Rotary Club members at the Nov. 25 funeral was a clue to another place Gerth had been active for many years. Rotary members noted how he had taken the lead role in running the club’s annual drive to supply toys and gifts for needy children.

Another board Gerth had been on was the Mille Lacs County Soil and Water Conservation District, where he had currently been the treasurer. aSusan Shaw, a Mille Lacs County department head in that area, said that Gerth will be missed on that board.

But what more people might remember Gerth for was his organization of the Mille Lacs County Fair. He was a quarter-century member of the board, whose formal name is the Mille Lacs County Ag Society.

“He really came into his own in the last six to seven years,” fellow fair board member Terry Ash said about Gerth’s organizing of events for the annual county fair. “I looked to him for leadership.” The county fair, Ash added, was so much a part of the lives of Gerth and his wife Judy.

Steve Ouverson, another Mille Lacs fair board member, recalled Gerth having been a “real hard-working fair board member,” and said that Gerth is “going to be sadly missed” there.

Gene and Judy would hold court each year at the county fairgrounds business office to fill in the area media on the events planned for that upcoming fair. Gerth would emphasize the many planned events as being wholesome and family-oriented.

It was under Gene Gerth’s booking of the county fair fiddle contest, an event started by the local Bistodeau family, that it earned a national recognition, said Mille Lacs fair board member Frank Hartmann.

Hartmann also noted that Gerth oversaw the Princeton Speedway operation that is on the fairgrounds. Gerth was on the fair board when the Outlaw sprint car series was brought in for several runs. The “downstroke” in revenue from that particular series brought needed revenue to help upgrade the race track, Hartmann noted.

Gerth took on a lot of county fair responsibilities, sometimes to the point in recent years where he was on the exhausted side during the afternoon of the fair’s last day. Because of that, he cancelled one set of activities at least once, activities that he had started as a way to generate more interest in the fair. Those activities included the nail hammering and bale throwing competitions.

Hartmann, Ouverson and Ash agree that the duties Gerth had taken on with the county fair were perhaps too many for one person. One of the three actually indicated that some of those duties may have to be shared by two people. “A lot of irons were in his fire,” Hartmann said, adding that Gerth “knew just what he wanted to do.”

Hartmann, Ouverson and Ash said the remaining fair board members have yet to determine how to replace Gerth for handling the work he did at the fair.

Gerth, two years ago, launched into an additional fair role, this time getting on the state fair board.

He was on that board for two Minnesota State Fairs and he expressed pride in having that position.

Incoming state fair board president Denny Baker, who was at Gerth’s funeral, said during the visitation that “Gene was a good member” and “had just begun to learn the ropes” of his job at the state fair.

Gerth, who represented the state’s District 6 on the state fair board, “enjoyed getting to know the different departments” of the state fair, Baker added. Now there will be a void on that board to fill, Baker said.

Gerth had been scheduled to attend the four-day International Association of Fairs and Expositions with other Minnesota State Fair board members this week in Las Vegas. That’s a convention in which people come from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico and possibly beyond to attend workshops, seminars, trade shows and look at potential entertainment contractors for fairs.

It has not escaped the notice of at least one person, fellow fair board member Hartmann, that Gerth was buried not very far from the Mille Lacs County Fairgrounds. His grave is not in the city of Princeton’s Oak Knoll Cemetery, which is across a chain link fence from the fairgrounds in Princeton, Hartmann said. But Gerth’s grave is in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery just beyond Oak Knoll to the north, separated from Oak Knoll only by West Branch Street.

Anyone standing at the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery during the height of the county fair might likely hear the sound of livestock, midway and more going on at the fair. Some of the people who run the Mille Lacs County fair next year will likely think of Gerth lying so close to the fairgrounds where he had such a strong presence for so long.