Congrats to Kat Irvine for taking the Best In Show. She has been a member for only about a year. However, she has contributed much. She helped with many committees and both digs. Then she brought in the winning Miniature to take the big prize. Hopefully, all our new members will be so enthusiastic. Our 2 man greeting team of Ron Bence and Ralph Sweetland did sign up approximately 18 new members. Way to go, guys. It was good to have Ron back.

Other winners for On-scape entries were:

Janet Hong, Extra Large-Ryan Cobb; Deb Richardson, Large-Indy Rhapsody & Spider-Third Witch; Dianne Taylor, Double-Ashee Dashee; Bill Pinkham, Small-Whistle A Happy Tune & UFO-Let Loose & Sweepstakes for the most ribbons.

Off-scape winners were:

Jeanette McQuitty, Large-Tar And Feather & Double-Gemini Jack; Angelo Franceschi, Miniature-Ribonette; Janet Hong, Spider-Eating Crow.

The People’s Choice Award will go to one of these and be announced at the Sept. picnic. Thanks to Carolyn Bolovan for exhibiting. She is one of our new members!

Sales were definitely up, possibly 3 times last year’s. (A full accounting will be presented by our Treasurer at the Sept. picnic.) This can be attributed to our Sales Committee of Angelo Franceschi & Ann Weber who saw better ways of doing things at the RADS show and had the willingness to make it happen for us. Bert Hammond got a list of Sale Plants out to members ahead of time and Gretchen Fisher organized and led 2 plant digs at the Research Station. Bruce Threatte donated about 300 seedlings and other members generously donated plants from their gardens, with Sterrett Gardens and Smithfield Gardens sending large quantities. The sales team did a fantastic job of keeping things going throughout the day and leaving us with no plants to deal with at 4pm. Thanks to you all.

A year ago we hauled many very heavy boxes of wine bottles to the show and back to the Wells’ basement. This year it was much easier because Ralph Sweetland took an idea from the Raleigh Daylily Club and made lighter weight containers of PVC and wood. He spent over 200 hours making them and saved us a lot of back breaking work. They looked great in the show and were very easy to use. Thanks, Ralph.

Attendance was up to about 500. The increase in attendance had to have been from the terrific Publicity job done by Ann Weber and Yvonne Leonard. Many thanks to Phyllis Wells for taking beautiful daylilies to be seen by all on the Channel 13 noon show on June 25^th.

Show entries were down this year instead of up the 20% we had hoped for. We think entries may have been down, in part, due to some members being unable to attend because of health or work reasons. Hopefully they will be back next year. But Janet McQuitty was there after a health related absence and won 2 of the 4 off-scape awards. Good to see you, Janet. Also, the number of seedling entries continued to increase. We even had 2 entries for Achievement Medal for the first time. It threw up for a loop, as we had never had this before. Hopefully, we will be ready next time. We had no Youth Entries, so urge the kids to exhibit.

Rick Richardson took over the Staging Committee this year and did a fantastic job. A big thanks to his committee for working Saturday and early Sunday to get things ready on time.  We know we have to come up with a solution to the tablecloth situation. Seamstresses may be needed before next year.

Dianne Taylor secured 9 well-qualified Exhibition Judges, including the President of the AHS and a past AHS president. Janet Hong and Elsie Holliday came up with clever gifts for them and Julie Hammond fed us all very well. Many members brought good homemade food. Elsie also provided 9 clerks to assist the judges.

Rich Sterrett and Steve Cotton tabulated the winners for the Show and Janet Hong arranged the winners on the Queen’s Table. She and Elsie arranged for the winners to receive gift certificates for daylilies at the TDS member vendor of their choice. Thanks to member vendors helping with this. Let us know if you liked these awards. We are always trying to please.

Ken Peterson worked through the schedule details with a new AHS liason and Deb Richardson has done much paperwork, before and after the show. She makes it look easy, but she does a lot of work. Gus Taylor headed up the Entries and Classification Committee with much help; Yvonne Leonard & Bill DuPaul were in charge of Placement.

Rikki Sterrett was ill and couldn’t photograph the winners, but Gail Lee took her place and she and Deb took all the pictures.

Those attending the Show were treated to 3 lectures plus a colorful display of Companion Plants for Daylilies arranged by Birgitta McConnon & Tammy Berryman.

Deb will send in all the required reports and Phyllis Wells will write an article for our Fanfare.

The following members helped in many ways: Don Buma; Lucy & John Bunting; Matt Christman; Christina, Becky & Dwight Cook; Margie cooper; Diana Dailey; Jerry Dickerson; Shelby & Richard Dickerson; Diana Driver& Greg Feistal; Pam & Angela Franceschi; JoEllen Gienger; Kathy Hanson; George Holliday; John Hong; Anthony & Megan Irvine; Carole Kemp; Judy Kuniba; Bill Pinkham; Bea & Bill Rogers; Denise Shreckhise; Don Snipes; Sharon Svete; Bill Wells; Priscilla Zimmerman. Many, many thanks!!

Trish Doughtry of NBG was most helpful and professional in our dealings with the Garden. The Federation of Garden Clubs, under the leadership of Betty Ann Galway & Frances Thrash put on a beautiful Design Exhibit that added much to the beauty of the show. Betty Ann taught a class on Arranging.

Deb and I would like to send out a questionnaire for you to respond to so our next show will be even better. We will have a Wrapup meeting in August, but we want feedback & lessons learned before then so we can discuss specifics at the meeting.