ST. PETER — Over the decades, when there was an electrical issue for the carnival or elsewhere on the Nicollet County fairgrounds, everyone knew who to turn to.
Bob Volk, who long owned and operated Volk Electric, was a Fair Board director who’d also wired much of the fairgrounds.
“He knew the answers to all the electrical stuff,” said Barb Volk, secretary of the board, who was not related to him.
Volk died Dec. 8 at age 91.
“He’s been on the Fair Board forever,” said Fair Board President Windy Block.
Block said that in the mid 1980s Volk was hired to do a bunch of electrical work at the fairgrounds. “Someone said to him, ‘As long as you’re here all the time, you might as well be on the Fair Board.'”
Later Volk took on the responsibility for managing the storage rental space the fairground has in the winter months. Block said the board uses a variety of buildings on site to store people’s campers, ATVs and other equipment.
“One day he called and claimed his shoulder hurt and asked if I could come with him to open and close the doors of the storage buildings,” Block said.
After checking several buildings and locking up, Block told Volk he’d forgotten to take the keys back from him.
“He said, ‘That’s OK, you keep them.’ And that’s how I ended up overseeing the storage,” Block said. “He was cagey.”
Ann Volk said that Bob Volk and his wife, Carol, were longtime family friends and he was dedicated to helping out the fair, even into old age.
Ann Volk and her husband were once helping fix the bleachers at the fairgrounds. “We went down there after work. We got there and saw Bob laying on his back under the bleachers. We asked him what he was doing and he said he’s fixing the bleachers. He was 86 years old and it was a scorching 90-degree day. He was a hard worker.”
Block said the county fair has remained strong and the board has added more younger members, with the board now at more than 20 members.
“It’s not just the fair where you make money. We make money then, but you spend a lot on a carnival and things.”
Besides doing things like renting storage space in the winter, the Fair Board hosts a variety of events throughout the spring, summer and fall.
An auto show has used the fairgrounds for more than 25 years and more recently the Ambassadors moved its Oktoberfest from downtown to the fairgrounds.
In recent years, as Volk aged and his hearing and health declined, he and Block sat at the back entrance to the fair to let in people who were taking part in demolition derbies, horse racing or other fair events.
“Bob was a really nice guy,” Block said. “It was fun running the back gate with him the last few years.”