THE HILLSDALE CONSERVATIVES
Truth • Liberty • Local Stewardship
Hillsdale County, Michigan • Sept, 28, 2026 • 2¢

People keep asking where the Hillsdale Conservatives’ booth is at this year’s fair.

We would like to know, too.

We were told the fair was full and that we would be put on a waiting list. Meanwhile, the spot where we stood last year sits empty.

If you have been going to the Hillsdale County Fair for any length of time, you know how booths work. People return to the same spots year after year. Some families and organizations have been in their places so long that generations of fairgoers know exactly where to find them. When a spot opens up, the fair works down its waiting list. That familiar arrangement is part of what makes the Hillsdale fair feel like our fair.

So why is our old spot empty while we are supposedly waiting for an opening?

Last year, we put up posters about County Clerk Abe Dane and the handling of election records. A fair official asked us to stop handing out flyers. We complied. Later, we were ordered to pack up our booth and leave. Fair Board President Nathan Lambright, who is also the county undersheriff, acknowledged that he gave the order. You can read our account of what happened. FOX 47 and The Hillsdalian also reported that our group was expelled over the flyer and poster.

Lambright called our posters “politics.”

Politics at the Hillsdale County Fair. Imagine that.

Republicans and Democrats have had booths there for years. They argue, campaign, hand out literature, and say unflattering things about the other side. Fair leadership managed to live with all of that. What it could not live with was our group putting criticism of local officials on a poster.

And the booth was only the beginning.

Residents who tried to pay their dues and join the Hillsdale County Agricultural Society were initially turned away. We documented those refusals. FOX 47 reported on the rejected applications and showed the letters applicants received. After the board consulted an attorney, the fair reversed course and began accepting memberships.

Then came the meeting at the Sheriff’s Department. FOX 47 reported that the Fair Board met there instead of at the fairgrounds and that a deputy told residents trying to attend that it was a closed board meeting. The Hillsdalian later reported that Sheriff Scott Hodshire sent messages warning some of our members about possible trespass charges. We laid out the wider dispute in our report on the Sheriff’s threats and the Fair Board’s actions and in the formal complaint filed before the annual meeting.

At the December annual meeting, members voted for board seats by secret ballot. The questions that brought so many people into the society still deserved answers.

Now another fair has arrived. The political booths are here. The arguments are here. The people who have always occupied their familiar spots are here.

Our spot is empty.

The fair can tell us it is full. Anyone walking past that vacant space can decide what they think of that answer.

We told the truth last year, and the people running the fair called it politics. This year, politics is welcome back. Apparently, the truth is still on the waiting list.

in liberty,
Lance Lashaway