CAROLINE COUNTY, Va. — The State Fair of Virginia returns for 10 days at The Meadow Event Park in Doswell.

The fair opens Friday at 10 a.m.

Fair executive director Marlene Jolliffe told CBS 6 this is her 35th career state fair.

“We have a legacy. We have generational fairgoers who this is a tradition, and they keep coming,” Jolliffe recalled. “My grandchildren and my children have grown up in the fair industry because of me.”

The State Fair of Virginia has been in operation since 1854 and Jolliffe said they’ve learned a lot since it moved to The Meadow Event Park in 2009.

Last year, she invited contractors to visit the fairgrounds to study their procedures finding virtually no issues, but showed areas for improvement.

Crews installed metal detectors and upgraded cameras.

A security team holds meetings year-round before the fair and safety briefings every morning the fair is in operation.

The fair partners with the Virginia State Police for security. VSP declined an interview about this topic.

Jolliffe said attendees can expect to see troopers across the park in addition to RMC Events employees in yellow shirts.

Those safety plans come on the heels of 300 people who were banned from nearby King’s Dominion due to fighting. Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Chesterfield County’s fair also saw groups fighting over the summer.

Community shares voices after large altercations mar community events, gatherings

“Certainly I follow that and pay attention to it, but we don’t start changing what has worked so well for us just because an incident happens at another location,” Jolliffe explained.

The fair has not changed any policies since then and there is no chaperone policy, either.

Jolliffe described the 10 fun days as family-friendly, with dozens of school groups visiting during the day.

“We’re secured and partner with Virginia State Police. They are one of our most critical partners, and they’re here. They’re in the operation. They’re all over the grounds. They park, they get people off of the roadway from a parking standpoint, but they’re all over the main footprint of the property, securing,” Jolliffe said.

Among the highlights this year include new bathrooms built near the entrance.

After two years of dealing with soaking tropical storms, crews have installed a 17,000-square-foot tent with seating over their main stage.

New foods include the “Big Fatty” cinnamon roll rolled in bacon and “Hurricane Fries” topped with mac and cheese, fried chicken, and Yum Yum sauce.

The fair offers a new “Fast Lane” wristband to skip the lines at the rides, farm animal showcases for adults and youth, baking competitions, musical acts, a roving piano, a magician, and more.

“The beauty of what we do with the fair is we’re not all about entertainment. We’re also about the agriculture of things, the garden, the competitions, and having that nice mix of things makes it a little easier to be able to figure out how you program it,” Jolliffe said.

The event has an overall regional economic impact of $41.5 million with 200,000 attendees over 10 days.

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CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WWBT) -Chesterfield first responders made their way to southwest Virginia Thursday to help areas forecasted to be the most affected by Hurricane Helene.

19 firefighters and EMS workers left Fire Station 17 in the morning to Wythe County.

The county expects several inches of rain, gusty winds and potentially downed trees and power lines.

The Chesterfield crews will be on standby to perform water rescues.

They are also ready to deploy to neighboring states if necessary.

Another group of Chesterfield firefighters flew out to the Roanoke area earlier Thursday afternoon.

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With the division system being demolished in the ACC, Virginia Tech no longer has to battle all of the Coastal teams for a shot at the Championship game, all that the Hokies would need to do is finish top two in the conference based on their conference record, which basically means that Virginia Tech should consider how they played in their first four games, but throw that out of the window for now because a new season will start on Friday for the Hokies.

The woes for the Virginia Tech team have been apparent and unchanged, but they’d only need to sneak an upset win or two and take all of the toss-up games on the schedule.

Now, I’m not saying that Virginia Tech needs to or will upset Miami, but I will consider paths to the Championship Game, with and without a loss to Miami.

Starting with the most realistic scenario, which would be Virginia Tech losing to Miami. In that situation, Miami would likely be a lock to be the highest ranked team in the conference, but it would be between SMU, Clemson, Louisville, and Virginia Tech to all vie for the last spot. With that, Virginia Tech would simply have to win out, with the number of teams now in the ACC a two-loss team just wont make the Championship Game, that’s why programs like Georgia Tech are essentially out of the race.

That schedule looks daunting, but outside of Clemson most of those games are toss-ups. They play Stanford, Boston College, Syracuse, and Georgia Tech after the Miami game, all of which could go either way. Against Clemson they could be double-digit underdogs, but still a game they need to win, so anything can happen. Then, the Hokies will end the season against Duke and Virginia, two teams I think they will be favored against.

Now the other path for Virginia Tech depends entirely on a win against Miami this Friday. The Hokies would have to pull off likely one of the bigger upsets in the history of the ACC. If they can do that though, the path gets much easier. Because the Hokies knocked off Miami, there’s no undebatable number one team in the conference, so the Hokies could lose one or even two games considering that they would have a tie-breaker over Miami.

This is the lesser likely of the two scenarios, but who knows? It’s Friday Night Football, and we’ve seen that be a problem for favorites this season.