Another successful Fall Faire goes into the history books! Quite literally in fact! Many of you may not be aware that the Golden Museum has been the chief organizer for this event, which with the exception of last year has been going for five years now.
I have a particular fondness for this Faire and want to take a moment in this column to say thank you to a few special people. There will be an official thank you to everyone in next week’s paper but there are a few who continue to make the Faire a special event.
Thank you to Ray and Helen Tress and their amazing family! Ray and Helen love the old fashioned country Faire and have spent a great deal of time preparing for each Faire. For those of you who are not aware, Ray has his own museum out at Nicholson. He collects items of interest from pioneer days and various forms of machinery but mostly tractors and buggies. Starting a couple of weeks ago Ray began planning what he would bring to the faire. He took a wagon and used it to make a portable museum. He spent two days moving the various parts of his museum to Golden.
My praise and gratitude does not end with Ray! Ray and Helen have raised a great family, who each love their community and contribute to the Faire in a variety of different ways.
Randy Tress has enjoyed the Faire since the beginning and has encouraged the family to take part in the lawn tractor racing. He’s been busy since the first Faire tinkering on his lawn mower until yesterday when he gave the crowd quite the show by cat walking the mower on the line. The machine went straight back, leaving Randy laying on his back on the ground. Up he got, got the machine going again and went after the two other mowers in the modified race.
One of the racers was Jerry Leigan, Randy’s brother-in-law and the other was Eddie Leigan, Randy’s nephew. In the stock division was Randy’s son Jason and Raelyn Tress, Randy’s newphew. The sixth machine was created and ridden by Ben Demers. All of these guys put on a fantastic show and I’d like to say thank you to them for the extra effort!
Thanks to Randy for sharing his concerns about the speed and suggesting that we get hay to slow the track down and to Jerry for bringing the big beam from behind the museum so that the nail drivers had something to nail into. Huge thanks to Eddie Leigan who seemed to be present everywhere yesterday. He worked with the Rotary selling tickets, represented the volunteer fire department in the presentation to Don McTighe, raced tractors, helped with setup and hauled the hay from Parson for the event.
Thanks to the many people who came forward to offer help, before during and after the event. To everyone who said “Hey, next year I would like to be responsible for a particular part of the event.” Thanks to Lee Bedford for organizing the Farmers Market, and to Travis Pickering for organizing the musical performances.
Denice Darbyshire who stuck by my side for the best part of three and a half days and to my husband for his help as well. Thanks to Mel McMahon at the Rec Plex for his flexibility, to Andy Commons for moving everything to the Rec Plex and returning it back to the museum, the Golden Rockets for helping with the setup and to Wayne Clark, who is the master of the stage construction. Thank you Michele at the Golden Star and Kris King at the Local Townie for making sure that people knew about the event.
Thank you to the vendors, groups, organizations and businesses who contributed in a hundred different ways and to God for a glorious sunny day! Most of all thank you all for coming out to help us celebrate the end of another summer because without you all the planning or work in the world wouldn’t make this event a success. See you next year!
