The Muskingum County fair board looks very different than it did a year ago. Only two incumbents kept their seats in the board’s Oct. 28 election, two members who resigned in January won their way back, and Denny Mozena was named the board’s new president at its Nov. 3 meeting, replacing Jerry Miller — capping a year of resignations, money pressure and public argument over what the fair is for, according to results and interviews reported by the Zanesville Times Recorder on Nov. 5.
The results, reported by the Zanesville Times Recorder citing the board, gave three-year terms running to 2029 to Heather Noss, an incumbent, with 262 votes; newcomer Keith McKenzie with 212; and returning former members Derek Watiker with 202 and Andy Wilson with 192. The losing three-year candidates were all incumbents: Jesse Passwaters with 128 votes, outgoing president Jerry Miller with 112 and Dave Eck with 94 — In the shorter races the Times Recorder reported, Ashton Pettit beat incumbent Brady Johnson 197 to 133 for a two-year term to 2028, and incumbent Darren Hanby beat former member Berney Harmon 166 to 143 for a one-year term to 2027.
At the Nov. 3 meeting, members were sworn in, officers were elected and outgoing members were thanked, according to the Zanesville Times Recorder. Mozena takes the president’s gavel from Miller, with Katie Linville as vice president, Mike Boysel as secretary and Gail Deitrick as treasurer, the Times Recorder reported. “We just need to keep moving forward,” Mozena told the Zanesville Times Recorder. “We just need to continue to grow the fair as an agricultural representation of Muskingum County, be that the 4-H program and FFA program or the open class shows. Make it a family destination for a week in August,” he told the Times Recorder.
The two returning members both say the kids brought them back. Wilson left in January, telling the Times Recorder in April it was for personal reasons; on Nov. 3 he told the Zanesville Times Recorder the biggest factor was supporting a family member through health issues that have since improved, and that part of his reason for leaving was a feeling that 4-H programs were getting lost. “For me, a fair is about the 4-H and the kids. If you don’t have the kids and 4-H, then it’s a carnival,” Wilson told the Zanesville Times Recorder. Watiker told the Times Recorder his departure was a personal preference and cited creative differences over the fair’s direction; both men told the Times Recorder that board and community members encouraged them to run again.
The election closes a turbulent year that began in January, when nearly half the then-12-member board resigned, including John Graham, the board’s president of 36 years, the Zanesville Times Recorder reported in April after obtaining the resignation letters through a public records request. “There were more people that wanted to go in a different direction than what I was used to. I didn’t want to go in that direction,” Graham told the Zanesville Times Recorder. The board filled the vacancies by application and interview, the Times Recorder reported.
Money shaped the 2026 fair the new board inherited. The board dropped its 2026 headline concert because each show cost around $70,000 and ticket sales had slumped, Miller told the Times Recorder in April; records the Times Recorder obtained showed ticket revenue falling from $339,539 in 2024 to $288,811 in 2025. The direction debate boiled over in public on Aug. 7, when a standing-room-only crowd of at least 74 people pushed back on a proposal to sell most hogs from televised photos instead of in the ring; the compromise that passed lets each exhibitor choose, the Times Recorder reported. The 180th Muskingum County Blue Ribbon Fair then ran Aug. 16–22 at the fairgrounds on Pershing Road in Zanesville.
The board’s work sits inside a busy Zanesville civic season — the city has been revising its 2026 budget as a fire grant lands — and across the region, where four Southeast Ohio school districts recently received $256,035 for bus safety upgrades. For fair families, the Zanesville board table is where 2027 is decided.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know, from the Zanesville Times Recorder’s reporting: the new board is seated, Mozena is president, and both returning members and the new president describe a 4-H-first direction. Still waiting on: the board’s committee assignments and first 2027 planning decisions, whether the concert returns, McKenzie’s priorities (the Times Recorder reported he could not be reached), and whether Miller runs again.
What happens next is planning for the 2027 fair next August. The Mozena-led board inherits the open questions from the fair’s hardest year — the concert decision, how the exhibitor-choice hog-sale compromise carries into 2027, and continued fairgrounds work after the blacktop and north-stage projects Miller listed among his tenure’s highlights to the Times Recorder. The staggered terms mean the next election touching this group comes in 2027, for the one-year seat Hanby just won. “It’s been an honor to serve as your president,” Miller said at the Nov. 3 meeting, as reported by the Zanesville Times Recorder. “These are volunteer roles. You step up because you care about the kids, 4-H, and the fairgrounds, our fair, and the community,” he said, according to the Times Recorder.
Photo: Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0