Billy Clark, owner of Smokey Mountain Amusements, which is providing the rides for the first time, said the 19 new rides are bigger and can hold more people at a time.

The Thunderbolt, Ring of Fire and Bumper Cars are three of the biggest, he said. But for sheer impressiveness, Clark likes the Titanic.

The Titanic is an orange, inflatable replica of the ship as it nosed into the water. When it’s fully blown up, it stands 30 feet in the air. Kids climb up the smokestack to slide down the deck onto a cushioned landing.

The carnival Titanic is manufactured in Minnesota, and costs $14,000, a relatively low price compared to the cost of other rides. “It’s amazing what it does,”Clark said. “It attracts more people than rides that cost as much as $100,000.”

Clark opened his season in the Carolinas in March, he said, and the Titanic has been so popular it’s almost paid for already.

The folks in Faith are tickled about getting new rides for the first time in recent memory, but the story has a sad side, too.

The concession changed hands because The Ride Man — Alfred Williams, of Lee’s Rides — who traditionally provided the amusements for the Faith Fourth, died this past Easter Sunday. People take comfort in knowing that after Williams’ health began to fail, he personally chose Clark to succeed him. Clark works on a larger scale than the Ride Man did. Clark said he works more county fairs than any other carnival in North Carolina.

When they’re home, Clark and his wife live in the Great Smokey Mountains on property that has been in his wife’s family for 150 years. But with all those fairs, they’re not there very much, so they’ve indulged in a pretty nice home-away-from-home that includes office space. It’s a 53-foot travel trailer with five slideouts, extensions that push out from the sides of the trailer when it is off the road.

Even when he’s not working, Clark likes to live in the unit during stints in Florida. “It’s not bad for an old poor boy,” he said.

Clark is set up now at the edge of Faith Legion Park, with a help-wanted sign outside his office. He could use “five or six, or seven or eight”more people to travel with them in the Carolinas and Georgia, he said. When everything is in full swing, it takes more than 40 workers to keep everything going. Just getting ready takes about 25 employees.

Clark was outside his trailer reading a tabloid-sized newspaper called “Amusement Business.”He called it “The Carny Bible.”

“I’ve been very fortunate,” he said. “I’ve been doing this since I was 15. I’m in the 44th year. I don’t want to do anything else. I don’t think I’ll ever quit.”

He said he couldn’t quit if he wanted to because he owes $1.5 million for his rides and travel home.

One of Clark’s favorite jobs is the Georgia Mountain Fair, which draws about 100,000 people in a dozen days.