Fair queen contestants washed their hair by running bottled water through coffee makers to heat it and officials brought in prepackaged food when a crisis hit the Charleston, W.Va. area during the annual meeting of the West Virginia Assn. of Fairs and Festivals.
West Virginia American Water customers in nine counties were ordered not to use tap water for drinking, cooking, bathing or laundry Jan. 9 after Freedom Industries leaked a chemical into the Elk River near the water company intake, just as the Jan. 9-12 annual meeting was getting underway at the Charleston Marriott Town Center.
“Everybody voted that we stay,” said Ruth Taylor, association president, adding that the queen contestants agreed and all signed waivers. “We were already in the hotel and we already had been exposed before we knew something happened. And the contestants all said they'd rather stay. As long as we had electricity and we had bottled water, we were able to proceed.”
The big order of the weekend was to choose a queen for the State Fair of West Virginia, Fairlea, which will be held Aug. 8-16. Eighty-seven queen contestants from smaller fairs around the state had gathered at the Marriott, as had members of the West Virginia Assn. of Fairs and Festivals board of directors, by the time the crisis was announced.
Events were held not only at the Charleston Marriott Town Center, but also at the Charleston Civic Center’s Little Theater as well as its Municipal Auditorium in a separate building. All are within walking distance of one another.
The water crisis began the morning of Jan. 9 when a chemical used to wash coal, 4-methylcyclohexylmethanol, leaked into the Elk River but board members were not alerted to the water ban until around dinner time.
However, both Taylor and Robert Wines, the board’s president-elect, had smelled an odor when walking over to the Civic Center earlier in the day for activities.
“There was a smell of black licorice in the air,” Wines added. “Some people said it smelled like blueberries in the air.”
Board members soon learned that not only would they not be allowed to use tap water in their hotel rooms, but also the Marriott along with other restaurants in the region had been ordered to shut down any food-making activity.
Plus, Marriott officials made the decision not to admit any additional guests once the crisis occurred because rooms had not been cleaned, although anyone already in the hotel was allowed to stay.
At first, Marriott officials made the decision to turn the water off which meant guests would be able to flush the toilets only once. Using water to flush or put out fires were the only acceptable activities under the state of emergency issued by the office of Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin.
“But then they turned it back on and covered the faucets with paper saying not to use them,” Taylor said.
Board members met with Marriott officials who had to get permission from the corporate office to allow prepackaged food to be brought in. On Thursday night some board members drove one county west to an area that used a different water company and bought pizzas for the pageant contestants.
On Friday morning the Marriott was able to provide prepackaged bagels, water and juice; and then Marlene Pierson-Jolliffe, GM of the State Fair of West Virginia as well as the immediate past chair of the board of directors of the International Assn. of Fairs and Expositions (IAFE), drove an hour southeast to a Chick-fil-A in Beckley to buy lunch for attendees.
“While it was very, very difficult, we kept the convention moving forward and, in the end, it was a success,” Pierson-Jolliffe said. “We had to cater food in and we canceled one speaker. Folks made do with bottled water and jugs of water and some found hotels in areas not affected by the water.”
Board members went back to Putnam County to buy enough takeout barbecue in order to feed people at a planned Ag Luncheon, both Taylor and Wines said.
“We didn’t have too many complaints about the food or having too many sandwiches,” Taylor added. “That’s what you can do. The Marriott kept us in (bottled) water and juice, but couldn’t make coffee and tea. We’d have to make coffee in our rooms and bring it down with us.”
Some attendees also found sleeping accommodations at nearby hotels such as the adjacent Holiday Inn Express Charleston Civic Center, which was allowing new arrivals in spite of the crisis.
Taylor and Wines have a differing account of how the crisis affected attendance. Wines keeps track of the registered attendees and thought about 10 percent of the 650 who had planned to come did not make it.
However, Taylor believes that percentage would be much higher when taking into account all attendees associated with the pageant, including parents and members of various pageant boards.
All the bringing in of food will make for some difficult calculations in terms of determining if and by how much the crisis set back the West Virginia Assn. of Fairs and Festivals and what, if any, recourse there would be. A meeting was scheduled for Tuesday to try to reconcile the books.
“We’ve got all this stuff under contract,” Taylor said. “The Civic Center and the Marriott couldn’t provide food. There is a (stipulation) that if you spend so much on food, you don’t pay to use the meeting rooms. So now we’re going to have to pay to use the meeting rooms.”
Although the West Virginia Assn. of Fairs and Festivals wrote at least one check for food that was brought in, a lot of individuals otherwise paid for the takeout they went to purchase in neighboring counties.
Otherwise, the pageant activities went off Friday and Saturday nights, and Leslie Garrett, the queen of the Black Walnut Festival in Spencer, W.Va., was chosen queen of the State Fair of West Virginia.
“There was no problem whatsoever,” Taylor added. “It was as professional as the Miss America pageant and they were clean and smelled good. You would never know they had to wash their hair with water heated through a coffee maker.”
Interviewed for this article: Ruth Taylor, (304) 653-8563; Robert Wines, (304) 356-4500; Marlene Pierson-Jolliffe.