Clark County Fairgrounds receives truck from Ohio Edison FirstEnergy

Clark County Fairgrounds Executive Director Dean Blair looks over a bucket truck donated by Ohio Edison First Energy Foundation. JEFF GUERINI/STAFF

Clark County Fairgrounds Executive Director Dean Blair looks over a bucket truck donated by Ohio Edison First Energy Foundation. JEFF GUERINI/STAFF

The Ohio Edison FirstEnergy foundation donated a 2004 International Harvester Line Truck to the Clark County Fairgrounds.

The donation allows the fairgrounds to save money as they make repairs and perform maintenance across the grounds with their own trained crew.

Ohio Edison and the Clark County Fairgrounds have partnered on things in the past, and this was, “a very appreciated gesture,” said Dean Blair, executive director of the Clark County Fairgrounds.

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“I think one of the reasons Ohio Edison partners with us is because we are part of the disaster-readiness plan for the county, and a staging area for Ohio Edison. So, for example, if you see something big happen in Florida and Ohio Edison needs a place to stage and feed their people and get their trucks all set and ready to go, we are that place. So, they do partner with us on many things and we do appreciate them,” said Blair.

Blair said they wrote a request to Ohio Edison - not expecting anything - to keep them in mind if they had extra equipment. Not only did Edison have equipment, but it happened to be a massive truck.

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“Donating this used Ohio Edison bucket truck to the fairgrounds is a unique way we can give back to the community,” Tim Suter, an area manager with FirstEnergy said. ”The truck provided good service to our customers and we hope it can continue to do the same to benefit the county fair.”

The line truck boosts a 55-foot boom and can do all the infrastructure repairs and modernization required of the fairgrounds, according to Blair.

“We do have a significant infrastructure here of transformers, lines, single-phase electric, three-phase electric, and we have 300 events. Before we used old versions of line trucks, with ladders and people climbing poles; it was not as safe,” said Blair, “We are just very, very appreciative to have this.”

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