Ditch Cash, Thirty-Two Missing Booths: The Strongbox That Exposed Him

Ditch Cash, Thirty-Two Missing Booths: The Strongbox That Exposed Him A rural ditch in February yielded a padlocked hardware-store strongbox containing $8,700 in banded cash, a spiral-bound ledger of names and amounts, and an index card reading "holds collected, do not deposit." How did a man entrusted to manage thirty-one fair vendor spaces end up with sixty-three confirmations and thousands of dollars in a personal bank account? In this episode, we present the sequence of events that led from misplaced confirmations to a formal complaint and a forensic audit, following the vendors, the fair coordinator, and the money trail. Can a single quilter's persistence unravel a three-year scheme built on trusted paperwork? Person: Russell Fisher Organization: Calloway Fair Management LLC Amount: $8,700 Spaces assigned: 31 fixed vendor spaces Confirmations sent: 63 application confirmations - The strongbox was found upright in a ditch in the third week of February and contained $8,700 in banded cash. - The Calloway County Agricultural Fair has thirty-one fixed vendor spaces numbered and mapped each year. - Russell Fisher ran the fair for six consecutive years and was paid $11,000 a year by the county. - Fisher sent sixty-three confirmation letters in one season despite there being only thirty-one spaces, a discrepancy of thirty-two. - Holding fees ranged from $200 to $600 and were deposited into Fisher's personal account at Garrett Community Bank in Howell, not the official Portman Savings county account. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].