CLAY CITY, Ind. — What started as a small rural-health-oriented event has blossomed into an annual community get-together for the citizens of this tiny, southwestern Indiana town.

The seventh annual Clay City Community Resource Fair was April 11 at the Clay City Elementary School Gym. This event started as the Crisis and Stress in Farming seminar with about 15 exhibitors and 30 visitors.

“It was really geared more toward the farming community in the first year,” said Nancy Hyatt, a receptionist with the Clay City Center for Family Medicine and an event organizer. “A lot of people really enjoyed the event, and we were asked to open it up to more of the community.”

This year’s fair included 58 exhibitors and several hundred visitors. Although the exhibitors now include restaurants, banks and other area businesses, the Fair works to remain close to its rural health care focus.

“People seem to enjoy the event,” Hyatt said. “Exhibitors want to come back, and it keeps increasing every year. We have a lot of new things at the Fair each year, be we still try to gear it to health-related issues.”

Tiffany White, a medical assistant student of the Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, conducted blood pressure checks during the fair. “The great thing about this event is that we get to work with people who we’ve not met, and we can provide them with some important information,” she said while pumping an armband around Clay City resident Tex Horn.

The Fair is sponsored by the Clay City Center for Family Medicine, which is part of the Richard G. Lugar Center for Rural Health and Union Hospital, both of Terre Haute, Ind.

The mission of the Lugar Center is to prepare and train primary care physicians for a successful rural practice. Dr. Eric Beachy, who is a graduate of the Lugar Center’s program, is the medical director of the Clay City Center.

“This is a great event, and we put a lot of work into it,” said Beachy while holding the hands of two of his three children. “This is one way that we can show support for our community and the people we serve.”

This farm news was published in the April 19, 2006 issue of Farm World.