New fair and foundation directors mark Prater's Mill anniversary

Mikey Sims

Elaine Watkins

Michael "Mikey" Sims was 5 when he attended the first Prater's Mill Country Fair in 1971, and he's been back every year since.

"One of my first memories is riding back and forth on the shuttle, which was a hayride behind a tractor in those days," says Sims, a 50-year-old graphic artist who lives in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, about 100 miles away. "Nobody knew where I was, everybody was looking for me, and I was just having a great time on the hayride."

As a kid, he'd tag along with his grandparents, who were fair exhibitors. He jokes that he was 10 when he got his first job at the festival "walking around with Judy Alderman and Jane Harrell (fair directors), carrying their walkie-talkie."

It was good training.

As Prater's Mill Country Fair marks its 45th anniversary on Saturday and Sunday, Sims will be the director - with his own walkie-talkie in hand.

Sims was named the new director of the fair last month, following the resignation of Sherry Sexton, who had been director for 10 years.

Sims' appointment is one of two significant changes within the fair's management. Elaine Watkins also was named executive director of the Prater's Mill Foundation, taking over from Judy Alderman, who founded the fair and Prater's Mill Foundation 45 years ago.

Greg Bruner, president of Prater's Mill Foundation, says Sims' experience and knowledge of the fair made him an obvious choice to step into the leadership position. Sims has worked on the fairgrounds as a volunteer in multiple areas - booth exhibitor, handling traffic control in the hay-field parking areas, then streamlining the parking process for easier car-to-shuttle access for the thousands of visitors who stream into Tunnel Hill, Ga., during the two-day fair.

Two years ago, Sims was asked to be coordinator of the fair and worked with Sexton to oversee things, making sure all areas were on track for opening day. In his free time between hsi day job and fair duties, he's out scouting other festivals in search of new exhibitors for Prater's.

While Sims will receive a stipend as director, the time commitment makes his new job a labor of love. He says that, since spring, he's worked on fair business during every lunch hour on his regular job, an hour after work each day and all day each Saturday in preparation for this weekend's festival.

"Every weekend in September I'm up there," says Sims. "And it doesn't stop when the fair is over. We have a wrap-up meeting in October and send out invitations for next year's fair at the first of December.

"To me, the appeal is the historic preservation of the mill and surrounding buildings - the history of how things used to be."

For the Prater's Mill Foundation, Watkins brings 25 years of tourism knowledge to her new position as director.

She was manager of the Georgia Information Center in Ringgold for the Georgia Department of Economic Development and deputy director of the Dalton Convention and Visitors Bureau. She is secretary-treasurer for the Historic High Country Travel Association, which covers 17 counties in Northwest Georgia, and is past president and a board member of the Friends of New Echota State Historic Site.

The foundation and fair were both established in 1971 by Judy Alderman of Dalton, Ga., with the fair as a means of raising money for the foundation. The foundation's purpose is to preserve the 1855 grist mill and surrounding historic complex.

Alderman has remained the face of the foundation since its inception, even after her doctor encouraged her to cut back on her duties for health reasons 13 years ago.

"So now I'm going to be just a helper," Alderman says.

She says she has been working with Watkins in preparation for this transition and "we want her to take us beyond where the foundation is now. Everybody wants the site to be open regularly on a self-sustaining basis and to continue to promote the traditional values we have."

Watkins says she is already considering additional fundraising opportunities for the foundation, such as new group tours of the mill.

"We already do school tours, I want to expand that," she explains. "We would like to build an endowment. We are already on the National Register, so we want to preserve what we have and expand what we can."

Contact Susan Pierce at spierce@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6284.