Entertainment News

Salute to Education at the 2022 Madera District Fair Opening Night

MADERA – The Madera District Fair will not only kick off its 2022 season on Thursday, September 8, with Free admission on Valley Children’s Healthcare Day but also honor our Madera educators with a huge celebration.

The Business and Education Committee of the Madera Chamber of Commerce will host their Salute to Education at the Madera District Fair on opening day. While this event has been held in May for over 50 years, staging the event as part of the Madera Fair is expected to draw more attention to the recipients and their accomplishments. For that reason, Tom Mitchell, CEO of the Madera District Fair, stated, “It is our pleasure to facilitate the ‘Salute to Education’ at the 2022 Madera Fair recognizing Madera’s heroes!  We are proud to join our community in celebrating this year’s recipients”.

Over thirty-five educators from Madera schools will receive the Distinguished Teacher of the Year award for their outstanding efforts displayed during the 2021-22 school year. Teachers are nominated and chosen by their school site peers based on their exceptional, skillful, creative, and dedicated teaching. Award winners must also display an elevated level of care, respect, and kindness to students, parents, and co-workers.

When asked why the Madera Chamber hosts this event, Joy Doyland, Chairman of the Chamber’s Business and Education Committee, commented, “This event supports the mission of the Business Education committee to expand the partnership between local business and education. This provides an opportunity for the business community to acknowledge our teachers for their role in preparing our future workforce. We look forward to celebrating all the distinguished teachers from Madera Unified School District, Madera County Superintendent of Schools, Madera Community College, and Sherman Thomas Charter Schools.”

Madera Chamber CEO Debi Bray remarked, “We would like to acknowledge and thank the Madera Fair for providing us with the opportunity to host this event during the fair. If not for them, we would have gone three years of not being able to honor our outstanding educators (due to the pandemic). I also think it is the perfect venue to show off our teachers to the public!”

The event is sponsored by Educational Employees Credit Union, Madera District Fair, Madera Linkage Foundation, and Madera Unified Teacher’s Association and will begin at 5:00 p.m. with a private reception for the award recipients, their guests, and local educational leadership. The awards program will start at 6:00 p.m. at the Madera Fair's grandstand near Lumbertown. While guests will still be in the reception area, the staging to honor the Distinguished Teachers of the Year has been designed so that all fair-goers wishing to watch the program can do so.

Admission to the fair Thursday night will be free for all guests as the fair is also celebrating Valley Children’s Healthcare Day on Thursday, September 8th. The fair will run for four days until Sunday, September 11th. Hours of free entertainment are scheduled for both the Headliners and the 20/30 Stages, plus all the ground acts that will entertain multiple times a night throughout the grounds.

So do not miss out on your chance to honor our teachers and celebrate with Free fair admission! But first, grab your advance tickets while they are still available, so you can enjoy all four days of the fair and save lots of money. Advance tickets and carnival coupons are on sale now through September 8th at the fair’s office, online, and at the Rancho San Miguel Market in Madera. Be taken back to the good old days of the community fair. There will be a corndog waiting with your name on it.

For more information about the 2022 Salute to Education, contact the Madera Chamber of Commerce at 559.673.3563.