Game of chance: the N.C. Mountain State Fair in Asheville had been Powers Great American Midways' biggest date. That's how Corky Powers won the state fair midway contract. But will his fortune be tolled?

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Big Butler Fair - Cover story

Gravel crunches underfoot as Corky Powers prowls the midway. In less than 24 hours, the Big Butler Fair will open. Off to one side, The Claw will beck-on daredevils. On the other, the spinning teacups will spill children's laughter. They are two of more than 40 rides he has brought here, their chrome and fresh paint sparkling in the haze that blurs the hills and vales of western Pennsylvania farm country. Storms are forecast.

That's not good. Fairs need fair weather. Like hovering thunderclouds, Powers' overhead looms--the rides, some costing half a million dollars or more; the fleet of 47 gleaming white trucks, including 20 semis, parked in a field nearby; the $50,000 payroll he must meet each week, rain or shine. Powers shrugs. "If I listened to the weather every day," he says, "I'd shoot myself."

Scanning the Butler County fairgrounds, 50 miles north of Pittsburgh in the Allegheny foothills, he can picture tomorrow's crowd, the first of the 125,000 who'll pour in from Beaver Falls, Slippery Rock, Cherry Valley and other hamlets and towns during its run. Nine days later, the show will close at midnight. By dawn, the midway will be dismantled, loaded on the trucks and rolling toward its next stop, like clockwork. "That's because we've done it so many times."

At 59, Powers has the easy manner of a man who has lived life on the road, weathering setbacks and enjoying successes one town at a time, one fair at a time. His business has grown like that, one ride at a time, from the three he started with in 1980 to the 54 he has now. They're housed each winter in a sprawling complex at his headquarters in Burgaw, north of Wilmington in coastal Pender County.

This fair is one of about 3,200 held each year in the U.S. and Canada, according to the Springfield, Mo.-based International Association of Fairs and Expositions. The trade group has more than 2,500 members, including traveling carnivals like Powers Great American Midways, their vendors and the venues they play. His is one of the 10 largest carnivals. And now, after 26 years traveling the circuit, Leslie E. "Corky" Powers is ready for the big time: the North Carolina State Fair.

Drawing 700,000 to 800,000 people each year, it's one of the largest and generally considered the best state fair in the nation. The money is massive. The state's take: usually about $9 million, most of it from admission tickets and the fee the midway operator pays to be there. Based on public records and insider estimates, Powers Great American Midways could gross $4 million to $6 million during the fair's nine-day run in October. What kind of margin a midway operator might make, nobody will say.

Livonia, Mich.-based W.G. Wade Shows had the contract last year. "I play more state fairs than any other carnival company in North America," says Frank Zaitshik, its president, "and nothing--I say nothing--ever prepared me for playing it. It's like going to the Super Bowl without ever having been there before. It's the closest thing I play to a true state fair. There's pride in it that you find no other place." Tar Heels come farther--from each of the 100 counties in the state--stay longer and spend more than anybody else anywhere. And about 40% of those who come ride the rides.

In 2000, Orlando, Fla.-based Strates Shows sold $4.5 million of ride tickets. It had held the midway contract--without ever bidding on it--since 1948, but with Jim Graham set to retire after 36 years as agriculture commissioner, that would likely change. That year, the Democrats nominated Meg Scott Phipps to succeed him. She possessed a prize political pedigree: Her grandfather had been agriculture commissioner, governor--an office her father also held--and a U.S. senator.

The N.C. Department of Agriculture...