FARMINGTON — Sunny skies have shone over Farmington Fair this week where animals, rides and exhibits have lured many in.

But it’s the people who have kept gatekeeper Jerry Whitney of Farmington working at the fair since 1974.

It was fairly quiet at the horse track entrance Friday morning, allowing Whitney and co-workers Keith Swett and Mike Otley time to sit for a while. It wouldn’t last for long, they said.

People would soon stream in for an afternoon of horse racing and later for an evening truck-tractor pull. The work day stretches from 12 to 13 hours, Whitney said.

He takes time off from his job with Wilton Public Works, where he has worked 29 years, to come to the fair, because he likes seeing people meet others they haven’t met in a while or since the last fair and because he likes seeing them, too.

“Ninety-five percent of the people are nice,” he said.

The strangest fair-goer he has dealt with was a blind woman who was determined that she had to park the car she was driving at the horse track fence so she could see the horses on the track, he said.

Whitney told a policeman he had to deal with that incident.

She was blind but she was driving, he chuckled.

Whitney didn’t start as a gatekeeper. During his senior year in high school in 1974, he worked on the rides for Smokey’s Greater Shows.

“That’s when the Zipper (ride) was new,” he said.

He then parked cars for a long time before graduating to taking tickets, he said. He’s been there about 10 years.

“I like the fair, seeing and talking to people,” he said. “There’s also so many hugs.”

People come year after year. The fair is sometimes the only place they’ll see one another. Many of them he now knows by name, he said.

Whitney is also amazed that so many people still come to the fair, given the economy. But, he said, it’s only once a year and it’s tradition.

There are a few issues noticed by the gatekeepers: Costs and parking spaces.

People have voiced concerns about the higher parking cost and the $2 admission on the two Senior Citizen days, he said. There used to be one Senior Citizen Day and entrance was free.

About 80 percent of drivers have a handicap plate and some wait till the last minute to come in when those spaces are already taken, he said.

He said he is very careful not to question a person’s age on Senior Citizen days.

“Don’t want to offend anyone. It’s tricky,” he said. A couple Thursday didn’t want to give their ages and “gladly paid the $6 entry fee.”

abryant@sunjournal.com