When Myers International Midways sets up each year at the Southern Kentucky Fair in Lampkin Park, it is like bringing a little town to the city.

“We’re like a neighborhood – we just change locations every week,” said Gloria Myers, primary owner of the amusements company based in Gibsonton, Fla., outside Tampa. Myers International Midways has been providing rides and amusements for the SOKY Fair in Bowling Green since about 1973, though not continuously.

That neighborhood wheels into town prior to the Monday fair kickoff, and its employees buy parts from local suppliers, fuel, eat at local restaurants at least once a day for a week and also hit the laundromats.

Fifty to 60 employees run the rides and once concessionaires and others are counted in, the army that runs the town in Lampkin Park grows to about 200 people.

“We do everything every week that everybody else does,” Myers said.

Today at midnight, the little town will get ready to pack up and roll on to Gallatin, Tenn., for next week’s engagement. Myers International Midways works fairs and other events in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. It works fairs or sets up at shopping centers or churches until mid-November, when matters shut down for maintenance and repair until February.

Myers’ late husband, William, got the carnival bug in 1965 when the young couple lived in Jackson, Tenn. They started with a food booth, then later a food booth and a carnival ride. It just mushroomed in size over the years.

“I did not want to have anything to do with it,” she recalled.

“You can either learn to like this business or get out of it,” Myers said. “You have to enjoy it because it is way too hard.”

Now Myers operates two different carnivals at the same time. Unit two is in Somerset this week. The operation is a family affair with Myers the matriarch. Set up in a portable crib next to her desk is 3-month-old Angie, one of Myers’ three great-grandchildren. She also has two grandchildren working for the company. Her son, Bobby, runs the unit that’s in Somerset.

Myers said she has known Chris Siegrist, SOKY Fair president, since he was a little kid.

“The people we work with are all like family,” she said.

“They are one of the best carnivals in the United States,” Siegrist said of Myers. “They always have something new and fun.”

The Siegrist family includes son Chris, daughter Vicky, mother Beverly and father Dennis. They are all about the SOKY Fair except for Vicky, 22, who never caught the fair bug, Beverly Siegrist said. Vicky is currently with the Missoula Children’s Theatre in Sacramento, Calif., having graduated from Western Kentucky University this year with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts.

Beverly Siegrist was the SOKY Fair’s first female chairman in 1994, and Dennis preceded her as chairman in 1992. This is Chris Siegrist’s second tour as chairman.

He’s all about the SOKY Fair.

Chris and his dad sat on a rock in 1992 with their McDonald’s food waiting for Myers International Midways to set up the rides. He had helped his dad all year long on the fair that year, and this was to be Chris’ inaugural experience at the all-night setup. However, chickenpox called, and Chris had to be taken home. He told his mother, a nurse, that she had to be wrong about the medical diagnosis. But she wasn’t, and he missed most of the fair.

Life on the fair midway as a concessionaire is also a lifestyle choice for some.

Chris Baker, 21, of Dayton, Tenn., sells amusements near the entrance gate, working for M&M Funtime Novelties out of Dayton. He left a manager’s job at 18 at a Japanese restaurant to sell fuzzy handcuffs and ponchos and enjoys the flexible lifestyle the work provides.

Brittney Farris, 19, of Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., said she loves the work. “I can make kids smile all day,” she said.

The fair ends today.

The schedule includes the Kentucky Outlaw Truck and Trailer Pullers, which begins its ear-splitting entertainment at 7 p.m. The truck pull sled is provided by Corbin’s Full Pull Enterprises.

Karaoke is also on tap tonight.