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For Vermont's first ever Wind Energy Day, nearly 1000 people piled into a steady stream of buses that took them up Waldo Mountain to view the Searsburg wind farm of 11 Zond turbines. The plant, owned by Green Mountain Power (GMP), started commercial operation around the beginning of July.

The celebration was on August 16, during the four day Deerfield Farmer's Fair and just one day after the official dedication of the 6 MW plant. "It was great! People were so enthusiastic," says Dotty Schnure of GMP The number of people who visited the wind plant, nine miles away from the fair, was fully one seventh of those at the farming event that day. Some people had even travelled in the summer heat from as far as New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire just to see the wind farm.

Also at the fair were wind related activities for kids -- such as making wind socks, and flying kites; there was a name the turbine contest, and a "run for the wind relay race" which started at GMP's South Burlington headquarters and proceeded up the mountain to the wind farm. An exhibit included five US wind companies -- Zond, NRG Systems, Northern Power Systems and Wind Stream Power Systems -- and solar company, Solar Works Inc.