Texico students build photo op sign for fairgrounds

CLOVIS - There's no "I" in team. But there is one in fair, and this year attendees of the Curry County Fair will get a chance to become that "I" at the photo opportunity sign, which was unveiled on Friday.

The sign, created by eight Texico High School Future Farmers of America students with the help of FFA instructor Terry Whitener, features a large metal "F," "A," and "R" with a space for people to pose as the "I."

Whitener said the partnership between the fair and Texico FFA, which also created a fairgrounds entryway sign last year, is the perfect chance for students to further their education and make an impact on the community.

"I think it's a great project for a group of beginners ... it's an awesome opportunity for students who are studying how to weld and how to cut metal, actually getting an opportunity to fabricate something like this and then to put it on display," Whitener said.

Whitener said he was especially proud of the fact that all of the labor and materials came from inside Curry County.

"The thing that I think is the second-most valuable - first is their education - but second is the fact that when the fair wants to do something like this, they don't outsource it to a company outside of our town," Whitener said.

Photos of the image will likely soon be flooding social media as the county and Spectra, the management company for the Events Center and Fairgrounds, will be hosting contests related to the sign.

Events Center and Fairgrounds General Manager Joelle Reed said Spectra's contest will run from Monday to 10 p.m. Friday, with four admission tickets, four ride wristbands and four tickets to the Aug. 18 monster truck event up for grabs.

Reed said contestants must take a photo with the sign and post it to the comments section of the Events Center's Facebook page. A winner will randomly be selected Friday night.

Curry County Manager Lance Pyle said the county will also be uploading images of the sign to its Facebook page with the goal of making the sign the most liked and shared item ever on the county's social media page.

The sign is located on the fairgrounds, outside the food court.

"The placement is kind of interesting because it needs to be in a low-traffic area so you don't block traffic but a high-traffic area so a lot of people see it," Reed said.

Scarlett Buenadia and Isaac Nieto, two of the students who built the sign, were happy to have played a role.

"It's a way that we made our mark on the fair," Nieto said. "I'm not very involved with showing animals or any of that so this is just one of the ways that I got to be involved."

"Just having something here that you can say 'I built this,'" and you can come back to see it," Buenadia said. "You can come bring your children here like "this is what I built, this is what I'm a part of and hopefully someday you'll be part of something here.'"

"I felt like every one of us put a piece of our hearts just into this, our hard work. It all paid off in the end."