Harrison Huskies hit 75th year at Fair

LEE COUNTY – With the 2025 Lee County Fair in the books, one of the untold stories of the fair was a group that’s been pedaling sodas and snacks for the past 75 years to fair patrons.
This year’s fair marked the 75th year the Harrison Huskies have worked the fair and Paula Ellis, a club leader, said things have come a long way since her father helped with the club when it first started as a pop shack.
“My dad used to help out with club when it first started. They had water troughs there and there was an ice plant here in Donnellson where they would get the big chunks of ice to put in a water trough to keep all the glass bottles cold,” she said.
“My dad said he always had to be careful towards the end of the fair, because bottles would break in there and you could cut your finger when you reached in because there was broken glass at the bottom.”
Now the group has a full size trailer with refrigeration units foregoing the water troughs and ice, and real bottles and real sugar. The parents work outside the trailer under a canopy grilling hamburgers, brats, hot dogs, and making nachos for fair patrons throughout the day, even during the afternoon hours between shows.
The name came from Harrison Township where the 4-H activities of the club began.
“That's kind of the Donnellson Primrose area and that's how the club kind of started,” she said.
The sales serve as one of the larger fundraisers for the group and those dollars are used for club activities throughout the year.
“We do a lot of extra activities like we do toys for kids and we pack shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. The kids do skating parties and and a pool party, too. So it helps fund a lot of club things throughout the year.”
Keegan Swan, another parent volunteer with the group, said membership has grown in the past few years. She attributed that to the fun the kids have and it becoming a little contagious.
“They don’t even have to be into agriculture. They tell others about the fun they have working at the fair and the other things and kids want to come be a part of it,” Swan said.

“But the kids are in there working it. We do the grilling, but every club member has a time slot and they come in for about four hours or split it up.”
The trailer is not air conditioned however.
“And the kids will tell you it isn’t air conditioned, too. But they still do a good job,” Ellis said. “This is the highlight of their fair.”
She said Thursday is typically the busiest day of the year with all the shows that take place on Thursday, but she said the temperature of the fair has a big impact on the sales and the kids.
She said membership ranges from kindergarten to 12th grade and, right now, the group has about 75 kids involved in the program.
“We’re the biggest club in the county,” Swan said.
Concessions usually start at 8 a.m. in the morning with cinnamon donuts and coffee. But she said fair patrons eat hot dogs and nachos at 8 a.m.
Ellis said she’s been the leader of the Huskies for the past six years and the the biggest change is the number of kids growing.
“We’re an awesome group,” Swan said.
LeAnn Moeller, another parent volunteer, said the kids just have a lot of fun.
“I think the kids have so much fun the week of the fair because it's like unstructured play. So, they recruit their friends to be in 4-H. They recruit them to come play at the fair, and I think that’s where a lot of the growth has come organically,” Moeller said.
She said the parents take turns supervising the sales throughout Fair Week. Ellis said with the group growing, there’s no indication of any slowing down and the fair will continue to be the high point of the kids 4-H year.