Trickett-WileH-2B Visa Carnival WorkersA rider pulls a face on the Supernova 360 on Friday 2025 at a Skerbeck Entertainment Group carnival at Lamar Park in Grand Rapids © 2025 Advance Local Media LLC. All rights reserved (About Us) The material on this site may not be reproduced except with the prior written permission of Advance Local Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site YouTube's privacy policy is available here and YouTube's terms of service is available here Ad Choices Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Jeanette Gilmore took over Smokey’s Greater Shows an institution on the Maine festival circuit life on the midway hasn’t gotten any easier Jeanette Gilmore’s 40-foot Friendship G7 motorhome sat in the middle of the Fryeburg Fairgrounds surrounded by the various artifacts of the fall of 2016: cornstalks; big orange pumpkins; a large red-white-and-blue sign in support of presidential candidate Donald Trump the owner of Smokey’s Greater Shows carnival company had been living out of the motorhome since April after driving north from her home in Siesta Key to run the business she once co-owned with her late husband the G7’s only occupant was Jeanette’s Yorkshire terrier five female Smokey’s employees were cleaning a concession stand in preparation for the weeklong Fryeburg Fair All five were Mexican and had come to Maine that June at the end of a seven-day trip that started 3,000 miles away in their home city of Tlapacoyan it had taken them a day-and-a-half to arrive by bus at a border crossing in Nuevo Laredo the women had been granted status as some of the 66,000 foreign workers who entered the U.S last year under the decades-old H-2B temporary visa program The women now lived in a collection of caravans beyond the fairgrounds which Jeanette sometimes calls “Mexico City.” When I asked if they’d seen Jeanette — who they refer to as patrona — the women pointed me towards the fairground office a short walk through a garden of partially assembled Ferris wheels and Thunder Bolts and Spiders and Sky Divers all being worked on by teams of men from Tlapacoyan the conspicuous Trump sign behind the Tlapacoyan workers seemed counterintuitive what with 2016 well on its way to becoming “the Year of the Wall,” a year full of campaign rhetoric about “hiring Americans first.” But some three years prior in a Washington Post article titled “The New Face of the Carny,” Jeanette Gilmore joined several other carnival owners across America proclaiming the necessity of hiring Mexican workers in an industry that has a hard time recruiting Americans “I put an ad in the newspaper for 40 positions,” Jeanette told the Post in late 2013 Most I’ve ever had was four.” Though she didn’t comment on how much pay she offered in her ad the $10/hour that her Mexican employees now earn working for Smokey’s has significantly changed the local economy back in Tlapacoyan I found Jeanette sitting on a bench outside the fairground offices between Roy Andrews with shoulder-length hair that she wears straight and blonde and her face can go from distressed to scrutinizing to sincere and maternal her face showed little interest in speaking to me Maine newspapers had reported on two accidents that occurred on Smokey’s rides at a carnival in Waterville and Jeanette felt some of the coverage was needlessly unflattering The accidents — one the result of a mechanical malfunction on a children’s coaster; the other caused by a rider removing her safety restraint on a swing ride — occurred in the second season since Bud’s death when Jeanette was still learning to run Smokey’s on her own and feeling vulnerable Smokey’s doesn’t own midway games like the basketball toss — only rides and concessions — but independent game vendors can join Smokey’s to share a stretch of midway for all or part of a carnival season Jeanette sat between the two old friends of Bud’s they seemed to act as a kind of protective buffer Smokey’s biggest event of the season started in three days Jeanette’s path to patrona began with Roland Gilmore who was born in rural Vermont in 1913 and died 14 years before she married his son Roland earned the nickname “Smokey” for his ability to wiggle free smokes out of a cigarette machine His son later described him as a hustler throughout most of his adult life and his carnival empire started with a hot dog stand that he brought around to New England fairs Smokey Gilmore bought a small woodlot in Strong and he inherited his first carnival rides around 1960 and after a Navy stint and a college degree from UMaine Farmington Smokey’s Greater Shows had become a stable business and the farm in Strong had grown to some 4,000 acres Bud used to say that his father remained a con to the end: upon a post-mortem examination of his dad’s birth certificate from a loosely regulated affair based on handshakes to an enterprise heavy on contracts Bud knew Jeanette tangentially from the New England carnival circuit She was a self-described “Florida girl” who’d left home at 18 to “go on the road and twirl cotton candy.” By the time Bud approached her at the Litchfield Fair in the early ’80s and working for her father’s ice cream concession An old friend of the Gilmores told me Bud’s initial attraction to Jeanette had to do with the particular and apparently sensual way she scooped ice cream in her concession booth They married in 1984 and together raised Jeanette’s son and Bud’s own four children from a previous marriage “Right from the beginning,” Jeanette told me they spent the three decades managing as many as 50 rides (carousels to Tilt-A-Whirls to Gravitrons) and 15 concession booths (cotton candy to candy apples to fried dough) from five northeastern states to just Maine they started participating in the H-2B temporary worker program hiring their first batch of employees from Tlapacoyan following a series of complications that arose after a heart valve replacement returning to his Florida home after closing out the carnival season just weeks after celebrating Smokey’s 30th appearance at the Fryeburg Fair hidden from the fairgrounds by several fence panels where she and her carnival colleagues gathered each night for dinner The temporary quarters had all the comforts of home: a roaring woodstove sunflowers and bowls of candy on the tables a food concessionaire and longtime friend of the Gilmores Piche reminisced about the nights when he and Bud used to stay up playing cards with their carnival friends “We used to call ourselves The Rat Pack,” he said wistfully it’s hard to get a start in the carnival business — one reason why Smokey’s has trouble attracting American workers A Ferris wheel costs half a million dollars in 2017 “Used to be that a young man could buy a hot dog stand and slowly start building a business,” Piche said they go to college.” She gestured outside the tent towards a woman working the games out on the fairgrounds but she keeps coming back.” To hear Jeanette tell it the skills one learns at a carnival apply to other aspects of professional life — chief among them: selling and selling Jeanette has been grinding harder than ever have been full of “so many firsts”: Her first time pulling up to the Gilmore farm in Strong without Bud by her side Her first time laying out rides without his knowledge to guide her “you remember where any of this stuff goes?” Jeanette shook her head “I used to curse him for all the things we had to do Jeanette spent last winter in her beach house on Siesta Key her seasonal employees returned to Veracruz thanks to corruption and ongoing cartel wars to see how their employees lived in Tlapacoyan “It’s like we’re family,” Jeanette told me a statement that seems especially poignant with Bud gone Jeanette’s own son was killed in a car accident in 1998 “I’m so blessed to have these boys,” she said most of Jeanette’s “boys” were back in Maine now parked in a vacant fairground in Topsham between a demolition derby track and a livestock corral With several southern Maine fairs on the schedule Smokey’s was using the Topsham site as its temporary headquarters Smokey’s was just wrapping a festival in Portland and prepping for a weeklong carnival in Auburn Buddy the terrier was bathing in a kiddie pool occasionally hopping out to play chicken with a group of woodchucks living under a nearby barn I found Jeanette sitting at a small desk behind the driver’s seat making calls to Maine’s Washington delegation She was urging them not to restrict the H-2B visa program given the Trump administration’s “Hire American” sloganeering and murky stance on foreign worker programs All of Jeanette’s 55 visa requests had already cleared — she’d started the paperwork nine months prior — but she was concerned about subsequent carnival seasons not to mention her colleagues in the industry the bunkhouses behind her trailer housed some 30 Mexican employees and the patrona hoped the rest would arrive by July Jeanette’s long-term concerns about the visa program were background noise to the day-to-day challenges and financial obligations that attend a traveling carnival show She needed more LED lights for her Ferris wheel both of which were needed in time for a show in Houlton in early July She was in the process of ordering a new concession stand from Pennsylvania She had two trailers that needed fixing (failed cooling system She was still reeling from having sunk nearly $25,000 into rebuilding her motorhome’s engine earlier in the year Jeanette’s phone did not stop ringing (her ringtone is a Mariachi trumpet) A jewelry vendor from Africa called to ensure that he and his wife could be guaranteed the same space in the Smokey’s lot they’d had the year before asking what time the rides would start and exactly how many rides would be running at the Auburn carnival When I suggested that posting her cell as the only contact number on the Smokey’s website might not be the most efficient model for business communication “The hard part is that this is still a man’s world they still want to talk to a man.” She shrugged “I think they just miss Bud.” Her phone rang again — a longtime vendor of concession parts and I’m all alone,” she told the vendor teasingly a delivery van pulled up in front of the motorhome and dropped off $800 worth of paint which Jeanette had ordered at the request of Levit Licona a 25-year-old from Tlapacoyan in his fifth season working for Smokey’s Levit was in the process of repairing — grinding and repainting — a set of miniature cars hanging from a twirling ride called the Spider Levit and Ana can make as much money in six months as they did back in Tlapacoyan in a year As banda music drifted through the fairground and as a few of Levit’s compatriots washed their clothes and dishes in outdoor sinks he showed me the camper he shares with his wife The couple met five summers ago while working for Smokey’s While Levit tends to stay back at HQ doing maintenance they often pass the time watching movies on Levit’s phone He likes superhero flicks and Ana does not although he wondered whether they might find some common ground in Wonder Woman The couple’s primary nightly ritual is Skyping with their 2-year-old daughter who lives with Ana’s mother during the five months her parents spend working in the U.S Ana and Levit invited me to join them for a dinner of Papa John’s pizza over which they explained the compromises of working so far from Tlapacoyan: Back home Levit used to work overtime at his body shop to make ends meet which rarely left him time to spend with Zoe he and Ana can make as much money in six months as they did back home in a year leaving them six months in the off-season to dote upon their daughter they’d gone shopping at a nearby TJ Maxx store and Ana held up the dress she’d picked out for Zoe — a red-white-and-blue sundress she’d bought for three dollars by the time they got back to Tlapacoyan in October Levit and Ana introduced me to their friend and coworker Berto who’s worked in the American carnival industry for well over a decade (and who asked me to withhold his surname) He sat in the staff’s shared outdoor kitchen where he and many of his coworkers eat communal dinners each night Berto said he often has to pay bribes to policemen with its powerful drug-trafficking cartels he gestured at the tall pines surrounding the fairgrounds with Smokey’s manager Robby Driskill; Smokey’s workers take a break while setting up for a festival at Brunswick’s Bowdoin College; Anna Kelly of Syracuse has worked carnivals on and off since she was 19; Levit Licona William (“like Shakespeare,” William introduced himself) Berto showed me photos of his family on a pilgrimage to the Virgen de Guadalupe in Mexico City He and William tried going to mass at Brunswick’s St On his phone (even as William chastised him for wasting data) he played me a video of a religious parade through the middle of town Then he clicked over to another video: Tlapacoyan’s mayor proclaiming on television his commitment to protecting citizens from drug cartels at the bunk bed he shared with William and the room not much wider than he is tall a carnival on the grounds of a Catholic school Brunswick Every Mainer has his or her own localized Smokey’s nostalgia; mine is set at the St I went to watch the local kids fight and ride the Zipper with my crush I returned with my two daughters and noticed that the men who operated the rides weren’t the carnies I remembered — scruffy white men who danced to AC/DC in front of the Gravitron — but instead a quieter group of Spanish-speaking men considerably more reserved and professional Ana stood in her lemonade stand with another woman William ran a spinning kiddie ride called Da Bears ushering children the age of his grandkids onto plastic horses Jeanette had parked her Volvo SUV behind the Thunder Bolt roller coaster and sat inside things had picked up somewhat: groups of teenagers were doing the Cupid Shuffle and the Electric Slide in front of a stage and lines had formed for the Thunder Bolt and Gravitron I found Berto gazing up at the Ferris wheel twirling in front of the steeple of the Catholic church He held up his phone and snapped a picture and when the spinning lights momentarily ignited her windshield she looked as though she were conversing with some invisible companion trying to order something called a mulligan wheel from a woman on the other end who didn’t seem to know what it was “It’s on a gondola,” Jeanette grunted into the receiver a 47-year-old carnival veteran from Illinois who Jeanette hired last year to help her manage Smokey’s after two tough seasons without Bud Robbie had been in Biddeford the night before was like “building an entire city in a day.” Working with municipal bodies to meet codes and standards could be tedious and time consuming “They expect us to be like Six Flags or Disneyland,” Robby told me Clockwise from top left: A boy waits for his turn to ride Smokey’s Greater Show’s bumper cars on the Fryeburg midway; Samantha Kuhns watches children bounce on a ride in Fryeburg; Independent concessionaire Paul Blaise lights a cigarette as his wife share a bunkhouse at Smokey’s temporary HQ in Topsham Jeanette was expecting another van of workers from Tlapacoyan and soon she’d be driving the motorhome 260 miles to a festival in Houlton while Robby stayed on the midcoast to run the Heritage Days carnival in Bath All of the Smokey’s infrastructure would have to be divided up: rides And even as they puzzled through the logistical snarls Robby brought up another potential crisis: a state budget crisis was hurtling Maine towards its first state government shutdown in 26 years All of Smokey’s rides require state inspections and if a budget wasn’t enacted by the end of June there might be no state employees to perform those inspections — and hence Jeanette was incredulous — a government shutdown as her new partner got in the car to head back to Biddeford The Illinois plates on Robby’s SUV read “CARNY.” Moments later came the sound of mariachi horns from Jeanette’s pocket It was a young man looking for carnival work Jeanette told the Texan she was all set for now “they just want me to buy ’em a free bus ticket Jeanette still hadn’t found a moment to shower “Haven’t done anything with my hair,” she told me “It could probably use an oil change.” With so much going on in the present it was hard getting her to talk about the future She’s thought about selling her house in Siesta Key Levit recently repaired a dented fender on her old one told me he and his coworkers still call it “Bud’s truck” or “patron’s truck.” Inside I saw Bud’s company ID card still hanging from the rearview mirror the image of Bud’s face almost entirely faded But her more immediate hope was that the federal government will “get this visa program straightened out.” In mid-July the Department of Homeland Security announced it would issue an additional 15,000 temporary foreign worker visas in the second half of 2017 a one-time bump that drew criticism from conservative pundits and seemed to muddy some of the Trump administration’s messaging The long-term future of the H-2B visa program is still far from certain they just keep coming and coming.” She looked out her motorhome window at her stable of rides tequila and waterfalls—what more could a paddler ask for Mexico may be the best-kept secret on the continent it offers up a cornucopia of epic sights and thrills the city of Tlapacoyan near the Gulf of Mexico is quickly becoming a whitewater kayaking mecca it is without a doubt one of the cheapest yet memorable whitewater trips you can take in North America If you live on America’s West Coast like me the Pacific Northwest can flush due to winter rain if you’re looking for any other action there is little November can feel like a delayed hangover from the summer season—I’m left wondering why all of my friends are sick and why I’m feeling like I can’t move off the couch I spend much of the month daydreaming about escaping But if you’ve got little cash to fly overseas and no option to take extended time off work I made last-minute plans to head to Mexico for 10 days last November Evan Moore and I jumped onto a local bus to travel to Tlapacoyan a five-hour drive from the country’s capital [ Plan your next Mexico kayaking adventure with the Paddling Trip Guide ] Seeing the expansiveness of Mexico City was impressive Mexico City is one of the world’s largest cities Safety in Mexico off the tourist resorts has a pretty terrible reputation in the American media we were soon to witness the friendliness of the locals—and their curiosity thanks to our large plastic boats—which put us at ease We arrived in Tlapacoyan in the middle of the night, boats on our shoulders. We found a cab driver brave enough to strap two large kayaks onto his tiny vehicle and soon arrived at our home base for the next week and a half: hostel and rafting outfit, Aventurec The city of Tlapacoyan is located in the Eastern part of Mexico It is a great home base for those wanting to experience the Alseseca With a population of 100,000 it’s a sizable city Surrounded by forested hills and pre-Columbian ruins it’s home to the massive but almost unknown sites of Filo Bobos and also a center of citrus fruit production a friendly outpost to both newcomers and annual regulars this beautiful retreat makes for a relaxing place to come back to after a day on the river Waking up to foreign birds and insects heralding the morning we filled up on plenty of carbs from the buffet Czech friends Matej Holub and Petr Civrny joined in on the two weeks of fun Our plan was to hit multiple sections of the Alseseca and Jalacingo [ See also: Rafa Ortiz On Chasing Niagara ] He’s the guy to know for local intel on all the best runs and how to get there in the Tlapacoyan area From Aventurec to the put-in of the Big Banana section of the Alseseca it’s just 30 minutes via lush mountain roads From here we saw the vast countryside around Tlapacoyan Dense green banana tree foliage were punctuated by vividly colorful buildings—it felt like Mexico at its finest At the portage path heading down into valley we came across a school yard The kids observed our brightly colored kayaks and group of gringos in silence but probably more interesting than math class I followed the crew to the base of the notorious Big Banana Falls Local paddler Rafa Ortiz and Spaniard Aniol Serrasolses were the first to drop 130-foot Big Banana Falls in 2010 Back then it was the second-highest waterfall descent outmatched only by 189-foot Palouse Falls in Washington Big Banana’s pool below the falls has to be one of the most beautiful put-ins in the world and just downstream is some healthy gradient not such a great thing due to the rivers being rain dependent November is not the greatest month for whitewater kayaking in the northern hemisphere November is the start of the rainy season around Tlapacoyan and beyond and the rain brings the most important part of the equation for anyone wanting to have a good time the crew ambitious and Mesura was happy to help set up ropes Truchas lies deep in the Alseseca canyon and requires whoever is willing to descend its 60-foot drop to rappel down to the river just upstream of it but none of the guys regretted spending a day in this majestic canyon looking up at Mexico’s prettiest waterfall Two weeks on two rivers might sound like a lot but my mind was blown with how much gradient and sections the Alseseca alone has Don’t be intimidated by big drops you see on many YouTube Mexico video edits the roadside section of the Alseseca provides creeky class IV It’s a short section most kayakers run laps on Other class IV runs include the neighboring Jalacingo which offers excellent gradient with clean waterfalls but some treacherous caves if lines are botched [ Read more: Kayaking Big Waterfalls—Dropping In On The New Extreme Sport ] And the whitewater kayaking in Mexico is otherworldly—there aren’t many places like Tlapacoyan where you can easily paddle several waterfalls in a day This article was first published in Issue 55 of Paddling Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives and website in this browser for the next time I comment Inspiring paddlesports participation through quality coverage of the people trends and events that make paddling something you'll do for the rest of your life Be one of the first to try our new activity feed Dane Jackson is an international kayaking prodigy Here’s an inside look into his flow—and what his sport can do for you like getting the fastest time on a hike or the most laps on a [kayaking] section I guess it just comes down to going all-out every so often I listen to music before competitions to get fired up and ready to go  Day-to-day in the competition circuit looks like a four-egg-and-bacon bagel sandwich for breakfast it helps to remind myself this is all so exciting and fun I also like to get stoked with other athletes Kayaking is great for building upper-body strength More kayaking means more upper body strength which means I can kayak even more Fear is there for me in every aspect of kayaking whether I’m preparing for a run on the biggest waterfall or before my final ride at the world championships I don’t hide from fear or try to ignore it I feel the fear and channel it to help me focus to nail the line or to put up the biggest ride I can the fact that fear was with me the entire time makes [the run] that much more of an accomplishment I definitely relax physically after a demanding event but I actually feel the need to restore mentally even more I enjoy the free time and not having to worry about judges Decompressing after big events and rides is really important If you don’t trust the boat you are paddling you can’t expect it to help out when you mess up or are in the toughest whitewater and tech with access to unlimited digital content from Outside Network's iconic brands the small city of Tlapacoyan lays nestled in the thick of lush Mexican jungle “The scenery is like something out of a movie,” says Rafa Ortiz who grew up in Mexico City and started rafting on the Alseseca River in Veracruz at age nine Ortiz now travels the world as a professional kayaker and have friends who’ve paddled hundreds of rivers around the planet and we pretty much all agree that the Alseseca River has the most awesome whitewater,” Ortiz says Seemingly countless sections of the Alseseca keep drawing paddlers to the region “It’s one river where you can spend a couple weeks and not get tired of it.” Though a great day on the river for Ortiz may include 40-foot falls there’s something in Veracruz for everyone You’ll easily find whitewater within a class III and IV comfort zone on the Alseseca and other rivers nearby plus a community of boaters to help you push your limits “It’s a great place to run your first waterfall,” says Ortiz The Alseseca Race takes place on the famous roadside section of the river every January drawing competitors volunteers and spectators from around the world Fly to Mexico City and catch a bus to Tlapacoyan though less convenient with a boat on board (see below for gear advice.) Car rentals are available at the international airport Adventurec in Tlapacoyan has cabins and camping for kayakers, as well as guides, raft trips, equipment rentals and a variety of adventure and cultural activities. It’s a great place to meet other boaters (www.Adventurec.com) If you’re visiting Veracruz for less than 10 days Keep in mind that big impacts on Alseseca’s steeps are notorious boat breakers it’s smart to find a guide or connect with boaters who know the region well This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2015 issue of Rapid Magazine Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid trends and events that make paddling something you'll do for the rest of your life.