The San Juan County Fair made history this year, celebrating its 100th birthday. It provided islanders with all the fun festivities and was the perfect place for a surprise engagement. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event for a local family that brought love to the fair.

The Dillery family is no stranger to the annual fair. Mom Katie and Dad Ted were lucky that their youngest daughter, Sophia, was born in the third week of August. She grew up always celebrating her birthday at the fair.

Sophia said, “The fair meant everything to me growing up. It was where we celebrated my birthday every year. We saw all our friends, and my birthday cake was always an Elephant Ear. When I was younger, I thought they put on the fair just for my birthday.”

This year, she was happy to share the fair with George Hughey, her boyfriend of four years. In 2020, Sohpia and Hughey met on a dating website. They planned their first date in Seattle. It was Sophia’s first date and George’s 16th first date. They have been together ever since.

Katie received a call from Hughey. He shared that he wanted to ask Sophia to marry him and needed her help setting up a surprise proposal. He asked Katie, “Where is her favorite place on the island?” Katie said: “THE FAIR.”

The surprise plan started to fall into place. Katie called local photographer Chase Anderson, who had recently taken pictures of her oldest daughter Madison’s wedding in July, to see if he could be a part of this surprise. He was happy to help.

They decided on a day and time; the plan was for the whole Dillery family to attend the fair. Anderson would see them and offer to take a family picture.

“After Chase took the family photo, he took Sophia and George’s hands and said, okay, you two, let’s get a few shots of just you two,” Katie said.

He set the photo up and held his camera up, and Hughey dropped to one knee and popped the question. Sophia said yes! Everyone cheered, and love was in the fair.

“Ted and I love our girls. We feel very fortunate that our girls are with such loving and caring men. They both have such bright and exciting futures ahead of them,” said Katie.

No wedding date is set, but it could be a fair wedding.