Instead, when the 123rd Annual Piscataquis Valley Fair comes to Dover- Foxcroft, the University of Maine at Farmington alumni and his wife, Jeanette, will be the powerhouse behind the midway excitement, as they have been for nearly four decades.

Gilmore grew up on a farm in Freeman Township, near Strong. Summers at home meant hard work. Luckily, Gilmore's father, Ron "Smokey" Gilmore, owned a hamburger/hotdog stand and a 3,200-pound, 31-hand  Belgian mare named Gene that was rumored to be the largest in the world. Come July, the Gilmore's would travel with the carnival operating their food concession and showing their world-class Belgian.

"It was a lot better than being up on the farm peeling poplar and haying," said Gilmore, who is now "a very young" 67 years of age. "There were a few girls around at the carnival, and things looked better."

Eventually, Gilmore's father took over the tasks of bookings, ticket sales and rent collection on the fair circuit. Then he bought his first ride, a Tilt-a-Whirl, for $22,000 and "Smokey's Greater Shows" was born.

Meanwhile, Bud Gilmore grew up, attended Ricker College in Houlton, did a stint in the U.S. Navy as a guided missile technician, and then went to work as an instrumentation technician with International Paper Mill in Jay. He decided to go back to college on the GI Bill. He toyed with the idea of law school, but wasn't sure he could afford that so decided to go after his BA in secondary education with a concentration in biology.

"I was better at science than anything else," Gilmore said. With a wife and son at home, one semester of classes to go, and several weeks of student teaching under his belt, disaster struck. Gilmore's father died, leaving him to run the family business. He finished earning his degree on the road while simultaneously drumming up bookings for the seven rides and two concession stands that comprised "Smokey's Greater Shows" at that time.

"It all changed when my father passed away," he said. "I became a carnie again."

It might have all been too much, with a family, the loss of a parent, school and the carnie business to learn, but not for Gilmore.

"For a normal person, maybe," he quipped, "but I was always smarter than the average bear anyway so there was not a lot of learning to do."

Gilmore has few regrets and is proud of what he and Jeanette have built.

"I've met interesting people, some big shots," Gilmore said. "I've met more people that I would have in any of the  other walks of life, even governors from I don't know how many different states, and people in the industry from all over the country."

Smokey's Greater Shows has grown to include 50 rides and 100 or so steady employees, with the ranks swelling to 200 during larger events like Fryeburg Fair. Jeanette does much of the personnel management while Bud deals  with the phone calls, breakdowns, maintenance schedule and other nuts-and-bolts aspects of the show.

"Every day is different," he said. A work day begins by 6 or 7 a.m., often with a run to the hardware store for  supplies. "I'll start them painting. We try to get as much work done as we can during the day, but we never get  caught up." There are trailers to scrape and paint, and new flags to put on the ice cream stand. When the midway  opens, it's time for Gilmore to make sure employees are where they need to be and all rides are staffed. He's also  on another mission these days.

"Right now we have karaoke," he quipped, "and I'm trying to get a buzzer for when they're bad. There are not too  many good ones!"

Quality is important to Bud Gilmore.

"Most people in this industry just want to see people have a good time and enjoy themselves," he said. "Everyone  tries to do the right thing. If they don't treat the customers good, they don't do anything for business, and if the food is terrible, they'll have no customers. We get [those people] once in a while, but they don't last long. The quality of the foodand operations are inspected every week. The fire marshal does the rides; the state does the health inspections. We kind of like inspections. They're good for you. People who don't do a good job and try to get into this business – theinspectors kick them out."

Despite his travels, Gilmore is still a Mainer at heart. Most of the Smokey's employees are Maine residents, and the Gilmores still own the family farm in Freeman Township. They spend a couple of months there each spring, getting things spruced up with the help of a year-round caretaker who maintains the place. Come summer, the Gilmores move from fair site to fair site every week or so in their motor home.

"It's pretty nice," Gilmore said. "I didn't always live there. I had to work my way up. It's a great thing when we're here for two weeks because we can get a lot of work done."

Winters are spent in Florida, catching up on all the "government's paperwork" that doesn't get done over the summer.

"There are sales tax reports for every state, and OSHA reports," Gilmore said. "And we go to conventions to see what's new. It's not as hectic as summer, but we stay busy. I do get a golf game in once in a while."
"This content originally appeared as a copyrighted article in the SVWeekly.com and is used here with permission."