Friendship grows in the art hall
Pamala McMorrow, Sharry Chapman and Michelle Carpenter have been baking buddies for years. They met when they entered their sweet treats at the county fair. (Marianne Austin)
Michelle Carpenter and her friends Sharry Chapman and Pamala McMorrow have been showing baked goods, candy and floral arrangements at the fair for at least 30-35 years.
This year Carpenter entered chocolate cake , blueberry muffins, brownies, four different candies and also entered a set of placemats in the needlework category. She got best of show in the candy category with her mint wafers.
“I met Sharry back in the middle 80s when I first started,” Carpenter said. “We hung out together and we’ve been showing for years and then Pam joined our group and we have just kept on going. It’s fun. We get together a couple times a year. We buy each other little gifts and talk about what we are going to show at the fair. We come here and make fun of our own stuff but we don’t make fun of anyone else. We just make fun of our own flops. We still have them after all these years.”
Chapman has been entering at the Art Hall for 47 years. She met Carpenter and later McMorrow came along and they have been best buddies all these years.
“We start out getting here early, about 7:30 a.m., we put our stuff in the Art Hall then we go out for breakfast,” Chapman said. “We come back for judging and we go out for lunch. We spend the whole day together and we’ve done it for years. We call and get together in between. We share recipes and just have a great time and this is where it happened. This is where we met. Besides winning ribbons and getting to enjoy baking, you can make some life long friends. I encourage some of the younger ones to come out and do this. I like to bake and I’ve had wonderful bakers in my family. My Mom and Grandma and I still have an aunt that bakes a lot and she is a wonderful baker.”
McMorrow has been baking 25 years at least, maybe 30. “Every year we enter. Sharry and I have been baking hickory nut cakes. We are pretty much the only two that do that. We make coconut cakes, so it is back and forth, like, who is going to win this year. That’s kind of fun.” McMorrow also does flowers. Her hydrangea won second place this year and her gerbera daisies won first place this year. She also made caramels for the first time this year because she was always intimidated by candy thermometers before. “But I did it and I got first place this year,” McMorrow said. “It’s the first time I ever made them, this year. “
Pamala McMorrow, Sharry Chapman and Michelle Carpenter have been Baking Buddies for years. They met when they entered their sweet treats at the County Fair. – fair day Jpeg
Category: People & Places
