By Derek Spellman

dspellman@joplinglobe.com

NEOSHO, Mo. — Light rain fell Thursday afternoon at the Newton County Fair as Emily McClain, with her 14-month-old child, picked her way across the parking lot toward her car.

As her daughter waddled under an umbrella and trailed her balloon, McClain talked about how they enjoyed looking at all the animals on display at the fair. The variety included horses, hogs, rabbits, poultry, dairy cattle and dairy goats.

“The rabbits were a big hit,” McClain said, looking at her daughter.

Neither the rain nor the overcast sky deterred McClain from visiting the fair — not this year, and not in past years either.

“Other than the rain, it was great,” McClain said of their Thursday visit to the fair. “Hopefully it (the rain) will be done tomorrow.”

McClain, as well as several others who went to the fair on Thursday, said it usually rained during fair time, but people still come.

And this year, organizers were expecting the annual celebration to draw a total of 10,000 people to the fair’s expanded lineup of attractions.

Take, for example, the Winchester family.

Meghann Winchester was with her daughter, 9-year-old Mikayla, on Thursday as the latter tried to sell some of her cuddly Holland lop rabbits. Meghann Winchester’s 8-year-old son also was at the fair.

“Love the fair,” said Meghann Winchester. “This is our vacation.”

The rabbit barn was jammed with people Thursday morning during the show, Winchester said.

“It’s not bad,” she said of the overall turnout on Thursday afternoon, despite the rain. “They (people) still come out.”

As the rain fell, many of the fair visitors on Thursday afternoon made their way through the covered barns and pens housing animals such as horses, market hogs, rabbits, poultry, dairy cattle, dairy goats and swine. Some visitors climbed into tractors or surveyed the lineup of farm equipment and vehicles that vendors had arrayed on the fairgrounds.