CJ Day– Staff Writer
A woman feeds rough wool into a spinning wheel and makes soft, white yarn.
A toddler watches as a golden eagle spreads its wings, its feathers catching the sun. A vendor shows off their artisanal soap, and the smell of citrus fills the air. The sights and sounds of the Higher Ground Fair last Saturday were as varied as the vendors and exhibits.
The Higher Ground Fair is an annual event sponsored by Wyoming nonprofit groups Action Resources International and Feeding Laramie Valley to highlight the traditions and skills of those living in the rural West. Participants came from all across the West to show off their goods and skills.
“This event is a great chance for us to show off what we do and get the message out,” said Sylvia Garofalo, the president of the Virginia Dale Community Club. “People would have no idea what we did if we didn’t have the fair.”
Garofalo and the Community Club were at the fair to present quilts that they had made. They planned to raffle off some of their quilts to raise money to restore the Virginia Dale Stage Stop, a stagecoach station built in the 1860’s.
There were many vendors at the fair displaying their textile arts. There were about three dozen entrants into the Quilt Show, where local quilters had their work judged by a panel of experts. LeJean Dobbs runs Happy Squirrel Quilts, an online quilt shop. She came to the fair all the way from Michigan to get her name out to people in the Laramie area.
“We’re mostly an online shop, so we don’t really get the opportunity to interact with the public in the ways that other quilters do,” said Dobbs. “Selling stuff is somewhat unimportant, it’s all about getting our name out there and getting people to look us up when they get home. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we’re doing good business out here today.”
The Laramie Fiber Guild and Cowgirl Yarn also had a presence at the festival. They brought looms and spinning wheels, and allowed fair goers the chance to try their hand at making yarn from scratch. Their table, though, was a bit overshadowed by the event they shared their space with – the llama and alpaca show.
Emily Mulheimer, a 15-year-old from Laramie, brought her llama Blackie to the show. After she showed her animal off, she and Blackie sat in the bleachers and watched the rest of the participants go through the paces. Unlike other participants, Mulheimer seemed to have nerves of steel.
“I wasn’t nervous even a little bit going into the ring,” she said. “I was worried a little bit about how stubborn my llama would be, and whether or not I’d get docked points for having to drag him, but other than that I wasn’t worried at all.”
There were other animals at the fair as well. The Rocky Mountain Raptor Program had an exhibit, where they showed off a golden eagle to visitors. Their booth had a ring of children around it, and the bird seemed happy to strut its stuff in front of them.
“Some of our birds, they don’t like people that much,” said Jessica Miller, the outreach coordinator for the program. “But our golden eagle, he seems to really like to show off, and he’s really friendly.”
Many other vendors and groups were at the fair, far too many to list here. This year’s fair was the largest yet, and it looks like this event will be a Laramie tradition far into the future.
