Every year during the last week of July, our small little rural community of Minidoka and Cassia County Idaho welcomes dancers and musicians from far away lands. Some of them have never been to America before and you can see the enthusiasm on their faces. The hospitality of the community is heart warming to watch, as so many families open their homes for several days and nights to these new friends. Language barriers often exist, but when the music and dancing begin, those barriers disappear! Smiles carry the harmony that means so much more than words. This year they came from Austria, Belgium, Russia Cossacks, India, and Columbia. These images are from the festivities that took place at the Rupert Square.

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BHS recently had a contest for Teen Read Week, and the prize was a celebrity portrait shoot and custom READ poster to be hung on the media center wall with the other Celebrity READ posters. I was asked if I’d do the poster for them, and I was happy to say yes! I love this kind of work. The contest involved the student body writing a short report on their favorite book. The media center staff chose 10 from each of the 4 grades, and hung the reports on the wall for the student body to vote for their favorite. Eckho won with her report of the story The Million Dollar Bear, a story her mother read to her when she was small. It’s about a teddy bear worth a million dollars that was kept in a vault, but the bear longed to be loved for who he was. With such a cute girl and story to work with, we thought it would be fun to work with the theme of the book.

The poster is 2 feet wide by 3 feet tall, framed, and is currently on display in the BHS Media Center, so if you’re in the area, stop by and check it out

Congratulations Eckho!!!

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There were 38 girls in the pageant this year which is a record for this area. It took place over two entertaining nights with a full house both nights at the King Fine Arts Center in Burley. The girls were from all over our region representing several different high schools. The winners receive various amounts of scholarship money, with the overall winning Junior Miss also receiving all expenses paid to the State Junior Miss pageant, a 6 month membership at Impact Athletics, and a portrait session by yours truly

The following photo was taken after their opening dance the second night.

And here is a photo of this year’s Mini-Cassia Junior Miss winner Brooklyn Gunnell (left) getting a hug from 1st runner up Brittni Duncan. Congratulations, Brooklyn! I’m looking forward to your portrait session

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It’s that time of year again! This year there will be 38 girls in the annual Junior Miss Pageant. I enjoy taking their portraits and designing the promotional poster every year. The posters just got in today from the printer, and there will be LOTS of them hung up all over the valley this next week. Here’s a sample of the poster. Their theme this year is Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I love that movie If you’re a local and want to go, you’ll need to get tickets from one of the contestants. With this many girls, it will probably sell out before the nights of the pageant. It should be an entertaining two nights!

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Well, it was another great festival! We had nine teams from all over the world spend most of a week in our community. Many of them had never been to the USA before and very few spoke English. Teams stay in private homes throughout the community which is an amazing way for cultures to learn about each other, in spite of language barriers. Even though I didn’t take any photos this year at the departure, I was there giving the teams CD’s of all the pics I took as a gift to them and I saw many heart felt tears and hugs as team members and host families said goodbye to one another. If world leaders participated in these, I’m sure there would be no more war. Teams this year came from Belgium, Russia-Cossacks, Russia-Siberia, China, France, Israel, Greece, Mexico, and India.

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