Preparing to feed the masses...
By Jennifer Zartman Romano
Feeding the scores of buyers and sellers that attend the annual King Spring Tractor Auction at the Whitley County 4-H Fairgrounds can be a daunting task.
Getting ready for three days of breakfast lunch and dinner duty takes a significant amount of food and volunteer effort – but several local volunteers got a head start on the work Wednesday morning in the fairground’s main concession stand.
Lucy Draper, Dave Addison, Ronda Sroufe, Eric Blank and others spent several hours not only getting the space ready for serving – opening windows, washing down counters, etc. – but also began preparing the food. And, believe it or not, the auction had not even started and there were already customers knocking on the doors!
According to Addison, they were planning to prepare 200 pounds of sloppy joes. Eric Blank added they would be cooking up 1500 hot dogs over the next three days. By mid-day Wednesday, they had already finished preparing approximately 100 pounds of the sloppy joes – one batch at a time.
The concession stand will be run by 4-H Junior Leaders and other volunteers from now through Saturday, raising funds to support their club.
In South Whitley, members of the Rebecca Hollenbaugh Relay for Life team are busy baking an assortment of goodies for a bake sale they’ll be holding at the fairgrounds on Saturday from 9 a.m-2 p.m. Proceeds will support the American Cancer Society.
The tractor auction begins today and continues until Saturday afternoon. The auction begins with parts today, non-working tractors on Friday and running tractors on Saturday. The event is expected to draw a large crowd as usual and with headlights detected on the fairgrounds this morning before daybreak, it is likely to be another big event.