The numerous horse events at the 104th Priddis and Millarville Fair won’t be the only sources of heated competition at the event Saturday.
People entering their beloved pooch or feline in the pet show, someone signing in the talent show or an individual bellying up to be part of the annual pie eating contest will all want to take home first place honours as well.
When it comes to an all-encompassing drive to excel at the fair’s many competitions, no one is in the class of Patty Webb.
Fair chairman Donna Kendall described her as the “the old pro” and “the one everyone tries to beat.”
Webb herself sees participating in as many contest classes as she can each year at the Millarville Racetrack as a long-standing annual rite.
“I have been entering things for 55 plus years,” the 65-year-old explained. “It’s a part of my heritage.”
She got her start with the fair as a child helping her father to show dairy cattle in competition. In recent times it’s almost been simpler to point out which categories she didn’t enter instead of those she did.
“I have had up to 88 entries,” Webb said. “I have had cooking, flowers, vegetables, grasses, needle work and crafts. I enter everything but sewing. That’s not my forte.”
Over the years Webb has brought home piles of championship ribbons, so many so she’s had to recycle many of them and use others in crafts to keep them from overrunning her home.
This year the competitive dynamo has 79 fair entries including many in the baking categories. She’s been giving the kitchen in her Black Diamond condo quite a workout lately making cakes, pies, biscuits, cookies and squares. One would think the last few days before the fair entry deadline would be tough on the wily kitchen veteran, but she confessed that is not the case.
“One of my secrets is I freeze stuff,” Webb said of preparing things in advance.
Although the fair fanatic likes to do well at the event she took the unusual step this year of helping out some of her competition. She hosted a workshop in March outlining many of her preparation tips and techniques. Webb is not concerned some of her pupils may surpass the master in a category or two this year because to her — win or lose — she just wants to be involved in the historic Priddis-Millarville Fair.
She recalled her reaction to the event being cancelled last spring before it was later revived as a result of an appeal from the public.
“I was fair chairman at that time and it just about did me in,” she recalled. “It was very traumatic. But the fair was saved and I think we are stronger and better than ever.”
The renewed vitality of the event will be on display Saturday as it kicks off at 8 a.m. with the beginning of English and Western light horse competition followed by the usual opening of the Millarville Farmers Market at 9 a.m. Throughout the rest of morning and afternoon there will be much for the young, old and everybody in between to see and do. Attractions will include a vintage tractor pull and display, a Kids World play area, a petting zoo, an antique auto and truck show, heavy horse wagon rides, competitive sheep classes and much more.
Two of the must see happenings singled out by the 2011 fair chairman are the heavy horse display and the farm truck competition. Kendall said five teams of heavy horses, including for the first time grey percherons from the Bar U Ranch, will be demonstrating their might within the infield of the Millarville race track at 1:30 p.m.
On the farm truck side of things a collection of steel workhorses will be on display all day.
“Over the years your truck becomes well worn and well recognized in a number of ways,” Kendall explained.
She detailed much of the character that makes a truck a contender in this competition comes from having buckets of nails, oil cans, boards and assorted other farm material banging around in the back of the vehicle for many years.
The three finalists in the truck event will roll by the racetrack grandstand in all their ramshackle glory as part of the fair parade at 12:30 p.m.
“They will be open to public ridicule and finger pointing from the judges,” Kendall jokingly said of the farm trucks.
Learn more about all the things going on Saturday at www.priddisandmillarvillefair.com
