Sheep Industry News April 2023

Md. Sheep & Wool Festival Celebrates 50 Years in May

T he Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival will cel ebrate 50 years when it takes over the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, Md., on May 6-7, and attendees will want to make time to visit the 4-H Hall for a special exhibit of catalogs, post ers, T-shirts and other memorabilia from the past five decades. The first Sheep and Wool Crafts Festival was held in 1974 at the Carroll County Fairgrounds in Westminster, Md. Prior to the establishment of the festival, the only place that handspinners could buy fleeces was at the Maryland Sheep Breeders Association's annual wool pool, where this buying and selling tended to disrupt the regular business and was also not precisely legal since technically the buying company had contracted to buy all the wool brought into the pool. "Pray for glorious springtime weather and a let-up in the gas shortage for Friday, April 26, and Saturday, April 27, 1974. These are the days that the Maryland Sheep Breeders have reserved the Carroll County Fairgrounds for an all new project — a Sheep and Wool Crafts Festi val," read an announcement for the event. This first festival included a highly successful wool sale. It was reported that "mobs of hand spinners" from six different states snapped up the fleeces. Demonstra tions of spinning and weaving, wool craft sales, a Lamb & Wool Queen Contest, a food booth selling lamb bar becue, a freezer lamb raffle, live sheep exhibits, shearing demonstrations, working sheepdog demonstrations, a ladies' lead contest and a decorated lamb class were all part of the festivities. Attendance was estimated to be around 1,500 people. Through the years, more events were added. Sheep shows debuted in 1979. By 1980, the festival had

industry – is the Fleece Show and Sale. Fleeces in the show will be judged on Friday afternoon. The sale will begin Saturday morning and run through Sunday afternoon. Special events to commemorate the 50th anniversary will include a ribbon cutting on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. at the main gate and an opening ceremony at 10 a.m. on Saturday at the rear of the Main Exhibition Annex. Admission to the festival this year is $10 per day for adults 18 and over. Anyone under 18 will be admitted free. Tick ets and catalogs for the 2023 festival are now on sale at MSWF2023. eventbrite.com.

outgrown the Carroll County Fairgrounds and was moved to its present location at the Howard County Fairgrounds. There were a whopping 25 craft booths at that time. Now there are close to 275 vendor booths, attendance has increased more than tenfold and the festival is widely viewed as one of the premier festivals of its kind in the nation. The 2023 show will include 600-plus sheep and more than 40 workshops covering a wide range of fiber arts and other sheep related topics. But the highlight for many – especially in the sheep

14 • Sheep Industry News • sheepusa.org

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