It was my great fortune this weekend to meet a group of gorgeous
fashion models. They’d all come to the San Benito County Fair to
promenade in the fall season’s latest designer attire.
It was my great fortune this weekend to meet a group of gorgeous fashion models. They’d all come to the San Benito County Fair to promenade in the fall season’s latest designer attire.
While wandering the fairgrounds Saturday, I chanced to meet Sandra Green, the wife of Bruce Green, my fourth grade teacher. She and Bruce, I learned, had put together a fashion show at the fair for that afternoon.
Hmmmm. Svelte models from the runways of Paris? Tyra Banks here at the county fair?
No, Sandra informed me. Local members of Hollister’s Union 4-H Club planned to show off clothing they’d sewn.
Might these young style-setters perchance spare a minute or two from their busy schedules to grace a humble reporter with an interview for the Hollister Free Lance, I inquired.
Sandra would see.
Let me honestly tell you, despite the reputation fashion models might have for being coldly aloof, the ones I met Saturday afternoon were the total opposite.
Fiona Ryan, age 13, beamed a warm-hearted smile as I admired her elegant floral-patterned dress. It was designed in a style that surely might set camera flashbulbs blazing on a designer runway of the Elizabethan era.
“It’s a Renaissance dress,” she explained. “I made it to go to the Renaissance Faire.”
I noticed a pair of tennis shoes on a beautiful model wearing a woman’s two-piece plaid wool business suit.
“Trying to set a daring new fashion trend for the fashion-conscious CEO?” I asked Dominique Flores, age 15. The truth, I learned, was Flores simply forgot to bring her dressier shoes. “I was up late last night, and I was up at 7 o’clock this morning serving breakfast,” the model said, then explained how the 4-H Club annually gives a fairground pancake sunrise breakfast.
Other fashion models provided the scoop on how well-dressed 4-H Club members will step out in public this season. They were Danielle Shelton, age 15, Danielle Escover, age 15, Emily Tonascia, age 12, Tyler Dixon, age 9, Jaime Flores, age 17, and David Escover, age 16.
Alyssa Russell, 11, displayed her blue sunflower-patterned summer dress graced with a pair of well-worn tennis shoes. My reporter instincts still suspected a fashion fad for old sneakers accenting elegant skirts and dresses. Hmmmm. Making a statement?
“No,” Russell insisted with a laugh. “I forgot to bring my other shoes.”
The time for the fashion show came.
The Greens escorted the models to the fair’s Poultry and Rabbit House. Bunnies in their wire cages nervously eyed the 4-H Club members promenading about the poultry. The models occasionally stopped to pose and allow photographers to trigger camera shutters. A rooster crowed approvingly at Danielle Escover’s cowgirl country western outfit.
Oh, the glitz! The glamour!
Of course, there’s much more to the life of local 4-H Club members than having to handle the paparazzi all the time. There’s also the handling of the hogs.
That’s how I met Roxy, a Hampshire Duroc Cross sow belonging to local 4-H Club member Lizzy Tonder, age 9.
Tonder, a fifth grader at Willow Grove School, climbed into a livestock corral lined with wood shavings where Roxy rested in tranquil somnolence. I followed Tonder into the pen, and she introduced me to her pig.
OK. The fashion models I’d met earlier might not have been aloof, but Roxy sure was. I patted Roxy’s shoulder in friendly greeting. She opened her eyes, stared with extreme disinterest at me for a cold moment, than plopped back into swine dreams.
Tonder informed me of many interesting facts about raising a sow to show at the county fair. I was astonished to learn that, just like runway fashion models, hogs have to keep their girlish figures. The weight limit for a pig to enter the championship judging ring is 260 pounds, Tonder told me. But tipping the scales at 272 pounds, Roxy was a bit, er, hefty this year.
“She gained a whole lot of weight,” Tonder admitted. “She ate a lot.”
“What a pig!” I exclaimed. “You think the Atkins might help?” Tonder giggled.
“How about more cardio at the gym, Roxy?” I suggested helpfully.
Roxy snorted and snored away in peaceful slumber. I had the sinking suspicion she’d probably never find a fulfilling career as a runway model. She’d never pout her snout at fashion magazine photographers. How sad.
I asked Tonder what made her decide to raise Roxy.
“I just like pigs,” the girl told me simply.
It was obvious to many visitors at Saturday’s fair that Anthony Freitas also likes pigs. Really obvious.
Freitas, who is campaigning for the County Supervisor District 2 seat, found himself as the first place “winner” (if that’s the suitable term) of the fair’s “Kiss the Pig” contest. He received the highest number of $1 votes to raise money for the local 4-H Club. (Free Lance editor Conan Knoll came in eighth.)
Freitas’s “prize” was the opportunity to kiss – in front of hundreds of spectators – a pig owned by 4-H Club member Mark Tobias.
I could understand why he kissed the pig once. He was obliged. But then Freitas went for a second peck on the porker, giving me pause.
Unfortunately, the feelings weren’t mutual. Mark Tobias’s pig gave a quick squeal and jerked away as Freitas’s lips touched the hog’s the second time.
Sorry, Anthony. Maybe you’ll find romance with the voters on Nov. 2. And if you don’t happen to get elected to the county board, consider a career as a fashion runway model. Hey, I know a bunch of nice kids at the Union 4-H Club who’d be happy to teach you how to flaunt the latest styles in designer attire.
