ENID, Okla. — Chisholm Trail Expo Center soon will have new leadership, as General Manager Steve Barnes is set to retire May 1, 2023, from a position he has held for 22 years.
The Expo Center was built after a one-cent county sales tax about 30 years ago, and once it was built, the board that oversaw the Garfield County Fair went away and was replaced by a trust authority. Each county commissioner appointed three people to the trust authority, with 15 members at its outset. Barnes said he was appointed to the trust authority, which originally met every other week to try to get everything accomplished.
Barnes said the general manager position had been a revolving door with those in that position not staying on for long. He said he offered to take the position, initially planning to do it long enough to find the right person.
“This is something that not many people ever get to do. We had gone through different directors, who would last anywhere from six to 18 months,” Barnes said. “So we could never keep anybody. So finally, one of them quit, and I had quit farming. And so I said, ‘Look, not because it’s me, but because it’s one of us from the board, I’ll resign from the board and I’ll go sit behind the desk.’ I said I’d go for four to six months and sit behind the desk and maybe get an idea for the type of person that we need to get. Well, that was 22 years ago. It ended up being a job that I wasn’t looking for and it wasn’t looking for me, but we met up and I’ve had a great board, which has kind of opened the reins for me and allowed me to do what I wanted to do.”
Barnes said there have been a lot of events that he had never dreamed of being able to help put on. He said although Stride Bank Center is technically in competition with the Expo Center for events, there is a strong relationship between the two that allows for collaboration to make sure events are able to happen in town.
He said for the bull riding event recently held, participants did not have an area to house their bulls near Stride Bank Center, making it difficult to have the event there. He said the board that manages Stride Bank Center rented the Expo Center and the event was able to take place. Barnes said a drive-in movie event during the pandemic also was a collaboration, as Stride Bank Center had the screen and projector that were set up at the Expo Center, and there was a radio broadcast that people could tune in to in their cars to sync audio over the car radio that was from the movie shown on screen. Barnes said that collaboration has been beneficial for all involved.
“I hate to say that the event center downtown and us are in competition with one another, but we kind of are, yet still work together as much as we can,” Barnes said. “So that’s a great example of how we can work together, not only for the good of each other but for the good of the city, and it makes a great event for the spectators to come and watch, too.”
Along with those events, Barnes said things such as a three-week wrestling tournament that saw the Expo Center have 14 wrestling mats and hundreds of wrestlers, as well as monster truck events and bull riding, have been among the things that have been held at the Expo Center Barnes said they never initially thought about hosting.
“Whenever I say that my board has been great, because I started when the building was right at a year old,” Barnes said. “The board just kind of said go do what you can do. So that’s why we had the wrestling tournament, something we had never thought of, the bull rides and monster trucks. We’ve tried to utilize this so much.”
Among things that stand out to Barnes during his tenure at Chisholm Trail Expo Center is the fact the board has always been supportive of trying to keep the facility as new as possible, routinely replacing anything that broke down with something brand new.
“With the board’s blessing, any time that anything has broken down, I’ve replaced it with something new,” Barnes said. “And that makes the building new, because if you don’t keep everything repaired at the time it breaks down, all of a sudden, in four or five years, you’re in a spot where you’ve got $100,000 worth of re pairs that need to be made. Our only funding that we have is the money we generate ourselves, a 3% sales tax and the county excise board pays for the premiums for the county fair. Other than that, we are 100% self-contained, and we’ve ran in the black every year because of that.”
One thing that used to take place at the Expo Center was inmates from Garfield County Detention Facility being brought for various work projects. Barnes said it was a positive for the facility getting free labor, a positive thing for the jail being less crowded and a positive thing for the inmates who were able to learn what it means to work, something many don’t learn without such a collaboration.
Barnes said he had heard at one point that those at the jail believed the Expo Center was a rehabilitation facility, something Barnes disagrees with. He said one inmate who had worked at the Expo Center was told by his family in Kansas he would never be allowed to come home, but the family reversed that course once the inmate told them what he was able to learn at the Expo Center.
“We had a guy come in and say his family up in Kansas wouldn’t let him come home. He said he had told his parents what you guys have taught me, and my family is letting me come back,” Barnes said. “He said, ‘I never knew what work was until I came out. I was never, ever told I did a good job on something until I came out here, and I’ve never been told thank you for doing something until I came out here.’ He said you guys have taught me respect, work, a lot of things. To me, that’s what this whole thing is all about. That’s a great success story.”
Barnes said there is not currently a person in place to replace him, but a search committee is taking applications for the position, which he hopes is filled before May 1. Barnes said he hopes the Expo Center is going to be more modernized in the future. He said other communities have seen the success of Chisholm Trail Expo Center and have built similar facilities in their communities, one thing Barnes said now serves as more competition for event hosting.
“We have to stay creative, stay modern and be able to offer things that other people don’t have,” Barnes said.
Barnes is retiring due to health-related reasons, and said he will look to spend time with his daughter in San Diego, as well as spending time at multiple properties a friend of his owns near Chesapeake Bay and a town in Florida. While never a position he thought he would hold for 22 years, Barnes said he is appreciative of what he has been able to accomplish at Chisholm Trail Expo Center.
“This has been a golden opportunity for me,” Barnes said. “I’ve got a college degree, but it’s not in event management or building management or anything like that. So it’s something that I wasn’t necessarily trained to do, but since we have so many ag-related events, it was very easy for me to fall in and be able to do the things that are ag-related and all that. It’s been great, and it’s just a golden opportunity that not many people get to realize, so I’ve been real lucky to be able to do it.”
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