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| Saturday’s crowd alone is estimated between 3,000 and 4,000 |
Staff Photo by Leigh Prom:
The descendants and friends of the George Sink Family demonstrate the first step in the threshing and baling process last weekend at Southwest Virginia Antique Farm Days. |
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
By LEIGH PROM - Staff Writer
The crowds for the ninth annual Southwest Virginia Antique Farm Days exceeded 5,000, the largest crowd ever for the three-day event.
"Saturday was a fantastic day for us. There were between 3,000 and 4,000 just on Saturday," said Bob Camicia, vice president of Southwest Virginia Antique Power Festival Inc. "It was a fun weekend. We had good weather all weekend, low 80s, no rain, not too hot."
Farm Days is held each Father's Day weekend to "preserve and showcase agricultural history for future generations to experience," said Camicia.
Demonstrations included threshing and baling, sawmilling, woodturning, blacksmithing and rock crushing.
The tractor and lawn mower pulls drew large crowds. Among those in the lawn mower pull was 72-year-old George Peters of Copper Hill. He and his son and grandson got involved in the pulls two years ago. They compete with three mowers. Peters received a first-place trophy for his efforts in the hot stock 0-16 category.
Jane Crawford was on hand to display 40 toy tractors of varying brands, dating from 1949 to 1991. Most have been restored.
Plenty of Sink family descendants and friends were on hand to help with the threshing and baling demonstration. The 1923 Frick model 20x34 threshing machine has been in the family since the early 1960s when it was purchased from the Jim Rendy Webb family of Callaway.
The Farm Days event usually draws two or three generations of families. David Vaughn of Martinsville attended the event for the first time with his mother, wife and two children.
"It's been good," Vaughn said. "The kids are having fun. Food's good, too."
Kathy Palmieri spent Father's Day at the event with her 89-year-old father, Walter Jones, a World War II veteran. |
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