A joke that's been around longer than the 62-year-old Ross County Fair. An old ventriloquism routine where the dummy says he used to work as a voodoo doll. The ventriloquist twists the dummy arm and asks if it hurts. "No, but some guy in Indiana is going crazy right now," says Zach Bodary. Zach stands up as he talks near his trailer just off the main vending strip at the fair. He wants to work it into his act.

Zach is a clown. Zach is a mime. Zach is also 8 years old.

Zach wonders how he and his father, professional clown Brad Bodary, can work the joke into an act they're working on, which would have Zach playing the part of the ventriloquist dummy.

"How about you just kind of squeeze my arm?" he asks his father.

The Bodarys have been among the fair's most eye-catching acts during this year's event. The father and son team have been performing at the bandstand most nights so far before Brad packs up and performs Friday the West Virginia State Fair.

Brad has been a professional clown since the '80s, first touring with Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus. He met his wife and Zach's mother, Trisha Bodary, at the Ross County Fair in 1994, and the two spent an entire night talking on the midway.

The two barely missed meeting during Brad's first year at the fair, 1991, when Trisha was the outgoing Ross County Fair Queen.

After the 1994 meeting, however, the two fairgoers married within 10 months.