the celebration and the queen and her court, the big parade will start at 1 p. m. Friday. From the motorcycle escort to the last float the parade will be more than two miles long, according to Parade Chairman E. L. Admonson, and at intervals between agricultural, commercial and community floats more than a dozen visiting bands will blare their martial music.
Friday night’ s horse show is expected to be over by 10:30 o’ clock when the coronation ball for the queen will begin at the high school gymnasium. Governor Cooper and Miss Stong are expected to lead the grand march to the music of a nationally known orchestra.
Until rideathon time Saturday there is not any organized program, and visitors are expected to spend that time viewing the uptown exhibits of antiques and manufactured products.
Sufficient time has been allowed on the rideathon schedule to permit riders to return in time for the beginning of the finals in the horse show competition at 7:30 o’ clock Saturday night.
Planned primarily for the purpose of emphasizing the particular adaptations of the Tennessee Walking Horse to use as a pleasure animal, the celebration program provides classes for gaited horses and ponies, and for roadster and fine harness horses. Some of the best in these classes already are entered for the competition here.
The love of a man for a horse seems nowhere else to be more freely expressed than when there is no effort to express it, but when fans congregate after dinner to talk about horses. And they do that here and in Wartrace— when there are no celebration committee meetings to attend.
When Bob Murchison leans back in an easy chair on the wide porch of the Walking Horse Hotel in Wartrace and begins to tell Mrs. Margaret Clary about“ Red Ace” the gleam in his eyes reflects something akin to hero worship. Murchison has been telling Mrs. Clary about“ Red Ace” now for six weeks during which time she has been here to write special articles for the American Horseman’ s walking horse edition. Here for a shorter time, but busy every day, John Horst, of Pittsburgh, Pa., one of the nation’ s leading photographers of horses, has taken pictures also for the American Horseman edition. BECOMING A FAN
Horst came in two weeks ago with a trailer fully equipped with dark room and all other photographic facilities. He will remain for the finals of the show, and rapidly is becoming a walking horse fan.
That is easy to do in this environment. It is almost inescapable.
Orr, who came here from Columbia at the invitation of the executive committee to direct the 1940 celebration, was jubilant tonight as one by one the various committee chairmen came in with reports that their part of the planning has been done. His enthusiasm was shared by Chairman Parker, Vice-Chairman Clyde Tone, Secretary-Treasurer P. J. Scudder, and Finance Chairman Franklin Boyd.
The director-general’ s office staff headed by Miss Mildred Alexander who was assisted by Miss Martha Brown and Miss Rachel Gunn, had completed the mailing of nearly 12,000 copies of the“ Blue Ribbon” and late tonight all hands were put to the task of completing entry blanks and arranging exhibitors’ credentials.
With most of Bedford County already“ cantering” there were good reasons to believe tonight that before the mass meeting Monday night is over the well-known cry of the show ring,“ let’ em go”— signal that sends horses into their best speed— will be heard from Flat Creek to Bell Buckle and from Wartrace to Whitaker.
What Is Celebration?( Cont ' d.)
There are those, of course, who would emphasize a different aspect of the event by referring to it as " A Big Family Homecoming with a Horse Show,” and there is admittedly much golden truth in this description. First, you must consider that Shelbyville, Tennessee, is a town of exactly 10,466 people( 1960 census), and yet it entertains some 25,000 or more visitors from all states and several foreign countries during this big event. Put that many visitors and natives in close quarters once a year for several years and you will soon have a Walking Horse Lovers Family Tribe converging on Bedford County for an annual reunion and homecoming. Needless to add, in the best old traditions of the New South every visitor is made to feel right at home in no time at all. Where else can you meet a fellow Walking Horse enthusiast who ranches in Montana, who pumps oil in Texas, who plants cotton in Arkansas, who sells stocks and bonds on the banks of the Mississippi, who grows oranges in Florida, who builds roads in North Carolina, who farms in Alabama, who is the most respected doctor in his city in Georgia, who raises poultry in Oregon, who is a housewife in Indiana, who is a school girl in Mississippi, who trains horses professionally in California or Tennessee or Ohio, who sells Pontiacs in Kentucky, or who is“ just retired” in Arizona?
“ An Old-Fashion Camp Meeting Where Horses Are the Religion” may appear to be a very extravagant description of the Celebration. Perhaps the comparison is largely lost upon most of the modern generation. But the old-timers know what they mean when they use the term. The seething excitement day after day, the hustle and bustle of great throngs of people, the tears and the triumphs, the single minded concentration upon one major interest to the virtual exclusion of all others, the indifference to creature comforts during a period of intense activity.— these the Camp meeting and the Celebration have in common. Beyond this, the comparison is“ better felt than told.” You must inhale the atmosphere for yourself to understand.
We will expect you by the VOICE trailer throughout the week. Make it your“ home away from home” as we together enjoy the Celebration— a Community Miracle, the Greatest Horse Show on Earth, a Big Family Homecoming with a Horse Show, an Old- Fashioned Camp Meeting Where Horses are the Religion.
30 VOICE of The Tennessee Walkin '.: Morse