CLINTON – Oxen strained to pull cement blocks Sunday, roosters in the poultry pavilion crowed as geese honked, and children couldn’t help but reach inside the paddocks to pet the donkeys and goats.

The 54th annual Clinton Lions’ Agricultural Fair has remained true to its roots, keeping the emphasis on agriculture, and this year that rural experience drew record crowds. By Saturday night, the gate had taken in $6,000 more than last year and only the rain dwindled the crowds by the fair’s closing Sunday afternoon.

“It has a lot to do with Clinton itself,” said Lion Steve Wright of The Wright Place, one of the town’s largest dairy farms.

Clinton has seven active dairy farms with more than 10,000 cows – more than triple the number of residents. Clinton produces 13 percent of all Maine’s milk and the town’s dairy industry is augmented by a number of goat, vegetable and horse farms.

“Clinton is obviously an agricultural community,” Wright said. “After all, agriculture is the root of all fairs.” Wright said Clinton belongs to the Maine Agricultural Fair Association, which provides an annual stipend that is put right back into agricultural education.

“At least 75 percent of this fair is agriculture,” Wright said. “It is such a community-based event. No one here gets a paycheck.”

Lion Maurice “Bud” Scribner Jr., said that the Clinton Lions Club has about 75 to 80 members. “But it takes 300 volunteers to put this on,” he said.

“I take my vacation during the fair every year,” Wright said, taking a break from cooking french fries. “I work harder here than I ever do on the farm. People have no idea what it takes to keep this fair running.”

Jane Bolduc is one of those volunteers who returns each year. Among other duties, Bolduc runs the 4-H pie contest and Sunday she was checking in an apple pie baked by Alan Crocker of Augusta. “I love entering the contest,” he said. “I’m a good cook.”

Crocker said he had entered pie contests at fairs in Windsor and Litchfield. “This is my last hope,” he joked.

“Do you have a secret ingredient?” he was asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Do you want to share it?” he was asked.

“No,” he said, laughing.

Bolduc said hundreds of people enter the apple and blueberry pie contest or compete when the pies are auctioned off. “It’s easy to get $100 for pie,” she said. Each category usually has between 13 and 20 entries.

Scribner not only volunteers each day at the fair, he worked all winter on a quilt that he donated back to the Lions Club to benefit the Christmas fund for children.

“I did it at night so I wouldn’t fall asleep in the chair,” he joked. The king-size maroon-white-and-blue quilt was hard to give up, he admitted.

“It took 30 squares but I made 40 and picked the ones that I like the best,” he said.

A few steps away from the quilt, Marie Crocker, 41, of Burnham was checking out the competitors in the art, quilting, vegetable and photography contests.

“This fair is so down home,” she said. “Yes, it has a midway, but it really is a farm fair. I love that part of it.”

Her friend Anna Stone, also of Burnham, agreed. “Even most of the vendors are selling homemade items,” she said. “It’s like walking through a fair that our grandparents attended.”

Scribner said that the club has plans to build permanent restrooms and rebuilt the club’s food and office building. “Eventually we want to add more animal sheds,” he said.