That Ribbon!

Midway through the GLC show, Performance judge Tiffany Purdy called to me across the show hall and then headed my way, carrying a rosette.

"You need to have this," she said and my eyes widened when I realized what she was holding. (Photo by Liz Cory/Great Lakes Congress.)

A rosette from Lincoln Land Live, the show I'd held in the 1990s when we'd lived in Illinois.

Whoever had won it had also put the name of their model, the date, and the judge (me!) on it.

I could not believe it - aside from a few photos like the one above of my partner in crime co-show hostess Kathy Bateman, I have very few mementos from the Lincoln Land Live shows. (We had a basement flood in our Illinois home and I think my papers and things were lost then.)

GLC uses recycled ribbons and Tiffany had pulled the rosette out of the ribbon tub, recognized it, and knowing that I was there at the show, decided that I needed to have it. But how did Tiffany know that I was connected to that ribbon when she pulled it out?

Tiffany and me at the October, 2017 GLC show.

Lincoln Land Live was the very first live model horse show she ever attended. She talked about it a few years ago during an interview in the Mares in Black podcast. And she was wearing her signature pink even way back in the 90s, too!

Not only was it Tiffany's first show, but it was the first show that Chris Wallbruch and Linda Jensen ever attended, too. I'd not known that, but when they saw the ribbon, they told me.

That ribbon is now a treasured memento and is hanging up here in my office where I can see it. Thanks, Tiffany, for realizing what it was and giving it to me.

Lincoln Land Live All Youth Show 1994

In the 1990s I hosted a live show in Illinois called Lincoln Land Live. As a counterpart to it, I held a youth show, too. That show was always held in my home, and usually the participants were horse crazy kids who were invited to come over, borrow my models, and have a pony party.

Lisa and Cole used to attend live shows with me and so they really enjoyed participating in the ones at our house.

 I still have some of the tags they had put on my borrowed models.

Once in a while I find one of these old tags with my kid's name on it, and it never fails to make me smile.

That's Cole consulting with me in our Illinois kitchen with the kitchen table set up for some sort of performance class.

 The kitchen counter was used, too. (Michelle Z. is writing out some documentation.)

Not only did they use my show props, but it looks like we pulled out the Barbies, too! I have absolutely no idea what class this was!

Holding those shows was as fun for me as it was for the kids who attended, and I know that at least two of the entrants still love horses twenty five years later. Michelle Z. even invited me to her wedding  in 2011. That day included a horse drawn carriage!

My photo was snapped while I was giving the carriage horse, a beautiful Percheron,  a kiss. I found it framed and wrapped under my Christmas tree later that year.

Go here for a look at another of the youth shows that were held in my home.