EDITORIAL:

As the saying goes, everything has a beginning and an end.

Even still, the idea that this will be fair Chief Executive Officer Becky Bailey-Findley’s swan song at the Orange County Fair is difficult to imagine.

Bailey-Findley’s fair roots run deep. Her father Jim has run the Centennial Farm for years, and she first began employment at the fair in 1972.

After working on the staff for several years, she was named the general manager in 1994.

To say the fair has grown under her leadership is a major understatement.

Bailey-Findley’s tenure has seen record-shattering attendance and much of that can be attributed to well-planned fair themes, like salutes to cows, avocados, citrus, flowers and last year’s nod to the local surfing culture.

Under her leadership, the carnival rides and workers rose to a higher status and the stronger focus on booking top-notch music and entertainment has taken the fair to a whole new level.

For years, the fair was home to has-been bands that had little appeal to mass audiences. But bringing in more mainstream and current pop talent changed the makeup of the fair.

Bailey-Findley deserves much credit for that. But so too does Steve Beazley, the fair’s chief operating officer and vice president, who helped spearhead those efforts.

Beazley, we learned this week, will be rewarded for those efforts by assuming Bailey-Findley’s lead role after this summer’s fair ends. That’s a good move that we believe will leave the fair in good hands.

Bailey-Findley says she plans to travel the world and visit her grown children once this year’s fair is over. That will be a big change for her we know. But for someone who has done so much to improve the fair and, in turn, the community’s standing, the rest will be well-earned.

Here’s hoping that this year’s fair is the coup de grace.