History of the Show

The Early History of the Junior Livestock Show of Spokane

This eloquent early history of the show was written in 1955 by Fred Clements, original Junior Livestock Show founder and farm magazine editor.

They say the show began over a tableful of dirty dishes. That is what Frank Funkhouser says, and he should know. They were his dishes.

But actually, that was not quite the beginning. No one will ever know exactly what the thought of establishing a Junior Livestock Show of Spokane entered somebody’s mind. But it can be set down as a matter of record that the thought began to get results when Frank M. Rothrock took ahold of it.

One dark November afternoon in 1935, when I was about the last member of the Pacific Northwest Farm Trio publication staff to close my desk for the day, Charlie Talmadge walked into the office and plunked down in a nearby chair.

“Freddie, I’ve got an idea and what to know what you think,” he said.

Charlie was about the only grown man in my acquaintance to ever call me Freddie; at least habitually ‘Freddie’ hardly seemed to fit my make-up, yet it always seemed to warm my heart. Maybe that was because I just naturally liked Charlie Talmadge. And, maybe I liked him because we had so many ideas in common.

Anyway, I was ripe for whatever he brought to lay on my desk. And it proved to be a Junior Livestock Show. Frank Rothrock had been talking to him about it and Charlie was afire with enthusiasm. He didn’t say so, but I knew he was talking to me because, amongst other things, I was a farm magazine editor who was livestock-minded and one who could conscientiously support the idea.

“I have a ham in my apartment and I know how to bake it. Get a couple of other fellows to join us and we’ll talk thins thing out as a ham dinner whenever you say.” We said right away was none too soon, and we invited Ernie Boyd and Almer McCurtain to join us.

That was how it came to pass that Frank M. Rothrock, Charles M. Talmadge, Ernest A. Boyd, Almer McCurtain, Fred W. Clements, and Frank Funkhouser dirtied the mess of dishes that figured so prominently in the nativity of the Junior Livestock Show of Spokane.

A week or two later about four times that many dishes were used at a second dinner engineered by Frank Funkhouser and attended by about 25 businessmen, agricultural extension workers, vocational ag instructors, and other folks known to be interested in boys and girls and good livestock. From that occasion forward there was no doubt. A Junior Show was in the making.