“I grew up on a farm in Greenbriar, Arkansas, and my dad put us to work. We had beef cows and a garden the size of Texas. We canned everything. We were poor, but we were comfortable. 

When I was a kid, we waited for the fair all year.  It was a magical time with a parade and a day off from school. It was like our family reunion. I didn’t know I would become a carny for the rest of my life. 

I dated the wrong guy in high school. I had just broken up with my boyfriend, and my best friend told Freddy to ask me to the junior prom. We went to the prom, then Freddy went off with his family all summer to work the carnival. When he came home, the county fair was our first date. My life has revolved around Freddy and the carnival ever since. 

Freddy’s family owns Miller Spectacular Shows, an amusement company. His great-grandpa had a gas company in Little Rock and met a man in the carnival business. It grew from owning one ride to owning a whole carnival.

My husband is fourth generation: my kids are fifth, and my grandkids are sixth. We follow the carnival across the central U.S. for eight months of the year. We live in RVs and the midway is our front yard, a neighborhood where we cook out and have family time. My two sons are married and have their own RVs.

October is the last month of our season. We usually spend two weeks in Yazoo City and two weeks in Louisiana before going home for four months. There will be four generations of Millers working at the Yazoo County Fair. We think the Millers have been bringing the carnival to Yazoo for more than 70 years. Freddy’s grandfather passed away in Yazoo City, and one of his cousins was born there. It is almost a second home, and we use the Yazoo City admission hand stamp at every fair. 

 The McGraw family in Yazoo City has run this fair for generations, and we are close to all of them. I have pictures of the McGraws in my office – one of Jerry Clower with Mr. McGraw.  The McGraws keep everything old school. They still put up fair posters around town and sit at the front gate thanking people for coming. 

The Yazoo Fair grew from one to two weeks, giving us some breathing room and our folks a little time off. We tore down a fair last Saturday night in Minden, Louisiana then came straight here. Sunday is our jump day where we jump from one fair to the next and start setting up. 

Everyone knows their role. It starts with Freddy marking off where everything goes. He is now a high-tech redneck carny, mapping everything out with Google Earth before we arrive.

I was fresh off the farm when I started working with the Millers, so I had to learn quickly — including the carny lingo. Sloughing is tearing down the carnival, donnicker is a bathroom.  A roustabout sets up and tears down rides. Finding something on the ground is called a groundscore. We also have a big lost-and-found. 

Carnys are hard-working people. We have 44 employees, not counting family, and subcontract the games. The last few years have been harder to find employees. We started using the H-2B permit program in 2014 to hire employees from Mexico and Guatemala. Of our 44 employees, 33 are foreign. They have saved us.

The Mexicans and Guatemalans are the best workers. They are grateful for their jobs and send home every dime. They are supposed to arrive by March and return home by November 15. We try to get the same workers every year.

Running a carnival is expensive. Not only are we shorter on employees this year, we are paying more for employment than we ever have. Our rides run on diesel fuel and fuel prices have doubled. We don’t raise our prices because we have to keep this affordable for families, so we keep tightening our belts. There were no carnivals during COVID, and we went 15 months without income. We set up our food trailers in Yazoo that year just to make a little money.

The Millers have taken carnivals across the country for decades. We adapt to changes and add new technology and rides. People are bigger now. The signs used to say height requirement; now they say size requirement.  We also have to take more precautions with security. 

Some things may change, but the thrill of the carnival remains the same. Watching my grandkids ride the rides gives me great joy, just like it did watching my own kids ride them. There is a sense of happiness at carnivals where generations and families come together. Race doesn’t matter, and nobody is too rich or too poor to come out here. At the carnival, everyone is the same.”

Patsy