The 144th annual Portage Ex on Island Park was the hottest spot in Portage la Prairie this past weekend.

Fair Board Member Dave Koroscil says they had a great turnout for the entire weekend, despite seeing some rain.

"The weekend was excellent. We got off to a really good start on Friday and Saturday was really well attended, the only hiccup that came was at about 5 p.m. when some thunderstorms moved in, but that didn't stop the midway and they kept on going. In terms of the cattle sale, we had to move it indoors because of the weather, but it went very well. We had lots of locals out to put bids in on the cattle that were sold, and our top seller this year went for $5.05 a pound." 

Fair Board Member Dave Koroscil

Koroscil says people weren't shy to share their positive comments about the event.

"We've had very positive feedback in particular with the midway moving a little bit to the south onto mostly pavement. It really showed it's benefits on Saturday when the rain did hit because they were able to continue running through the little bit of rain that we got, and they didn't have to stop at all. We had a really good night as a result"

The new layout at the Portage Ex proved to be effective this weekend, and Koroscil notes they're always looking for ways to improve the Ex.

"Every year we evaluate after the show to see what improvements we can make. It looks like most people were satisfied with the was the Ex was this year and we'll just see if we cane fine-tune things a little bit and make it even better for next year."