the pittmans

For the Pittmans and much of their extended family, the State Fair of Texas is not just an annual tradition. It’s a way of life.

Kelly Pittman, an art teacher at Scofield Christian School in Lake Highlands, has made the Fair’s creative arts contests a family pastime. From the age of 5, daughter Hannah and son Collin entered hobby collections, art and cooking contests.

“It started with Hannah entering a doll. My brother in law, who’s in the military and picked up the doll while traveling the world, gave it to Hannah. We caught the bug that year. We’ve tried a whole scope of things since then. I never knew it would get so big for us,” Kelly says with a laugh.

Hannah’s Best in Show for a ceramic art piece when she was in eighth grade has perhaps been the crowning achievement. Her brother Collin, 13, has placed respectably in the Lego competition.

The real instigator of the family’s State Fair fascination is arguably not Kelly, but rather her mom, Judi Kohcak, now in her 80s, who has an entire half-room of her home dedicated to her fair entries and prizes.

The whole family begins thinking about the State Fair each May, when they receive the contestant handbook by mail. Entries are dropped off at the Creative Arts Building for judging in August, and in September, contestants find out who won. Kohcak usually is the first to know.

“She is at home during the day so she gets the mail first the day they notify the winners,” Pittman says. “She calls us up and says, ‘What’d you get?’”

Because of Pittman’s dedication to the Fair, her husband’s aunt endowed to her a full collection of State Fair Cookbooks, which contain recipes from State Fair food contest winners.

“She said she would leave them to me on the condition that I continue to add to the collection each year. In 2000, I messed up and almost didn’t get one. I cried! They sold out, but luckily, a friend of a friend had bought an extra, and I haven’t missed a year since.”